AIA and BAF awards 2024

In October AIA Baltimore in conjunction with the Baltimore Architecture Foundation (BAF) celebrated the 2024 design awards with a dinner at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Theater. The design awards annually showcase the design skills of local architects and landscape architects. 

The type of awards given by AIA and BAF Baltimore 

Over the years the emphasis and approach to awards has shifted from a mere "beauty contest" of "design excellence" to also awarding architecture as good business, design for social equity, for historic preservation and awards to "future architects". Design Excellence awards are given only to projects that have baked in sustainability goals.  BAF further complements the array of awards with  an award that honors dedication to architecture in Baltimore, Black Women who build Baltimore, a People's Choice Award and a Publication Award given to an individual who creates publicly accessible works that celebrate or educate about Baltimore architecture, past, present, or future.

Here this year's award winners, starting with the traditional design excellence awards that were based on the selection of an out-of-town professional jury consisting four AIA members of  the Buffalo and Western New York chapter of AIA. 

At the awards event Seth Amman, AIA of Arch & Type presented the design awards on behalf of the jury:

The Grand Design Award

The Grand Design Award went to Ayers Saint Gross for their Missouri Botanical Garden and Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center. The center also received an AIA Maryland Excellence in Design Honor Award earlier this year and was also recognized by IIDA Southwest with a Best in Show honor and a Design Excellence Award in Public Facilities.

Grand Design Award: ASG Missouri Botanical Garden
and Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center (Photo: ASG)

The jury called the project " an elegant addition to the campus that improves the sustainable goals of the garden“ and is "both restrained and beautiful in its simplicity” with “wonderful use of natural elements inside to connect to the exterior gardens.” “There is a wonderful layering of spaces, from the entrance through the vertical main lobby to the gardens beyond,” the jury noted and commented on the building’s site integration which skillfully addresses accessibility challenges of a nine-foot grade difference, and the clear site plan and programming.

Design Awards

Design Awards also went to Ziger Snead Architects for the Steep Creek House and the Five Gables House. The jury was struck by the execution and attention to detail in Steep Creek

Steep Creek House by Ziger Snead (Photo: Ziger-Snead)

House. Immersed in the forest, the design does not compete with the landscape. They also lauded the  "subtle and elegant detailing' that "carries through the exterior and interior design of

Five Gables. The building massing and exterior detailing nods to the archetypical

farmhouse." 

A Design Award also went to  Design Collective Inc. for Aster and its focus on sustainability and shared amenities create an exciting project that activates the community it's sited within. The Aster development is part of the Route 1 transformation in College Park.

ISTUDIO Architects received a Design Award for the Arboretum Community Center in DC for setting a precedent how to extend the life of existing structures that may not meet the milieu for historic preservation and using mass timber construction to create a clear distinction between the existing structure and new. According to ISTUDIO's website the project exemplifies innovative design, sustainability, and community collaboration. As D.C.'s first mass timber building, it revitalizes a historic field house, merging preservation with cutting-edge technology to create a net zero-ready recreational space.

Ziger Snead: Five Gables House (Photo Ziger Snead)

The Michael F. Trostel, FAIA Award For Excellence In Historic Preservation

The award went to the Urban Design Group for the VIVO Baltimore which expands the concept of Historic Preservation by extending the life cycle of two International Style structures in downtown Baltimore. The jury noted the difficulties in reprogramming two hotel towers and the intrinsic value of creating spaces for worker housing in the city center. VIVO Baltimore is an excellent case study for other cities as buildings constructed as recently as 1974 qualify for historic preservation.

Honorable Mentions

Moseley Rosemont. (Photo: Moseley Architects)

An Honorable Mention went to Moseley Architects for the Rosemont, a rehabiltation of rowhouses in Rosemont in West Baltimore. As per Moseley's website the project "helped to transform the Rosemont community while working within tight budget constraints and navigating HUD and CDA requirements. The owner and residents’ desire for accessibility, a vibrant new aesthetic, and updated amenities shaped the revitalization of 106 townhomes".

Quinn Evans received an honorable mention for the Baltimore Museum of Art, Patricia and Mark Joseph Center for Education, SM+P Architects for the Crook Horner Lofts, Hord Coplan Macht for the Park School Science and Engineering Wing, Design Develop, LLC for the The Lot at The Urban Oasis (unbuilt), Hord Coplan Macht for the The Wren, and ISTUDIO Architects for the Kingman Island Environmental Education Center (unbuilt)

The BAF awards are listed below.

Roger D. Redden Award

The Roger D. Redden Award is presented annually to an individual who has demonstrated a dedication to architecture and furthering its understanding in Baltimore. It was awarded to me.
as a founding board member of the 1000 Friends of Maryland,  the “D Center,” and as a past chair of the Urban Design Committee of AIA Baltimore and the national Regional and Urban Design Committee of AIA (RUDC). 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA (Photo: Side A Photography)

Golden Griffin Award

BAF’s Golden Griffin Award honors a group or institution for its exemplary contribution to, or stewardship of, Baltimore’s built environment. The Golden Griffin trophy consists of a stone from the Maryland Club salvaged from the building’s fire, and a gilded griffin inspired by those that grace the art deco landmark, former Baltimore Trust Company Building at 10 Light Street. The recipient of this award will keep this hefty reminder of their weighty contributions to Baltimore architecture for the coming year. The awardee is Black Women Build – Baltimore, founded in 2017 by Shelley Halstead who believes that for Black women to build intergenerational wealth, with the inherent security and prosperity it can generate, they must also learn the skills necessary to maintain that wealth. Home ownership and the ability to maintain that asset is one way this can be achieved.

BWBB purchases the ruins of old houses from the city for reconstructions. Since its start in 2019, the organization has rehabilitated 13 houses. To help keep their houses affordable, BWBB works with the Committee on Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP), which provides a 10-year tax credit on the property value increase resulting from rehabilitation work. In addition, Halstead is transforming other blighted buildings into social “third places” like a cafe and an art gallery.

Shelley Halstead accepting the Golden Griffin Award
(Photo:  Side A Photography)

Jim Dilts Award

The Jim Dilts Award was created in memory of author, Baltimore Sun newspaperman, and BAF board member James D. Dilts. As a founding member of BAF’s ‘Dead Architects Society’ Jim authored and edited many books, including A Guide to Baltimore Architecture. The Jim Dilts award is a monetary prize that is awarded to an individual who creates publicly accessible works that celebrate or educate about Baltimore architecture, past, present, or future. This year's award goes to Nick Redding and PreserveCast. Nick is the President & CEO of Preservation Maryland, where he has served since 2014, leading the charge to protect and celebrate the architectural heritage of Baltimore and beyond. Under his leadership, Preservation Maryland has grown significantly, launching programs such as Smart Growth Maryland and the Campaign for Historic Trades, which trains the next generation of preservationists in partnership with the National Park Service.

Nick is also the host of PreserveCast, a popular podcast that shares stories of preservation efforts from around the world, highlighting the importance of our history in shaping the future. His work not only preserves Baltimore’s architectural treasures but also educates and inspires others to take part in safeguarding our shared heritage. For his tireless efforts in making Baltimore’s history accessible to all, we are proud to present Nick Redding with the Jim Dilts Award.

 Nick Redding accepting the Jim Dilts Award
(Photo: Side A Photography)

People’s Choice Award

Emmanuel Episcopal Church – Moseley Architects

Photo by Kevin Weber/ Moseley

This award went to Mosley Architects the 1854 Emmanuel Episcopal Church renovation that connects the whole building via an elevator, provides accessible all-gender toilets, and adds a new exterior entry to the lower level. The renovation matches the quality of the historic building through careful use of materials. The resulting transformation keeps a historic building in active use and allows it to grow and thrive.


Future Architects Scholarship Awards

The (FAR) Committee created a scholarship program for students pursuing careers in architecture that awards design excellence. Winning projects demonstrate innovation, social responsibility, environmental stewardship, and critical thinking. The FAR Scholarship is a joint program between Baltimore Architecture Foundation, AIA Baltimore, and AIA National. This year's Undergraduate Student Design Award + Scholarship awardee is the Project 3 – Visitors Center by Lee Tomolonis of Morgan State University.

Lee’s Visitors Center  has a clear intent and strong concept that is presented in a playful and engaging graphic style. Hand-drawn vignettes were excellent companions to support the bold, stylistic renderings and lead jurors through this student’s thoughtful design process. Lee also showed an advanced level of landscape design, intentional inclusion of sustainable materials, and dedication to social equity. The pavilion for a “criminal” truly subverts the prison architecture it drew inspiration from.


The Graduate Student Design Award + Scholarship went to “Hydro Haven” by Evan Cage of Morgan State University.

Evan’s Hydro Haven is sensitive to its context while showcasing an incredible amount of research and technical knowledge. A thorough site analysis revealing flood patterns clearly supports the need for water harvesting on the site. Jurors were especially impressed by the knowledge of structural and MEP systems shown in wall sections and exploded axons, and the beautiful physical model included in the submission.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA 

based on material obtained from AIA and BAF and firm websites. The article has been updated.

These Tiny Baltimore Homes are supposed to do a big lift

Can a bakers dozen of 10 by 40 foot houses end someone's homelessness, provide a healthy space to live, create a "village" network of collaboration and be a path towards building wealth, while also reviving a deserted Baltimore alley?

Hope Village on Holbrrok Street in Oliver (Photo: Philipsen)

This is the promise that Christian and Pam Wilson and their non-profit, Heart‘s Place Services chased for almost a decade. A heavy lift. The couple was joined by Stacy and Mark Sapperstein (thanks to Dan Rodricks columns about the Wilson's dream in the Baltimore SUN) and eventually (pro-bono) architect Randy Sovich who came to this project via the Neighborhood Design Center (NDC) . Through the years the vision took on various forms, from 8' wide steel shipping containers that originated with Mr Wilson's marine insurance background to modular housing to the conventional wood-framed "stick-built" house we saw at the ribbon cutting ceremony in early November this year. The ribbon cutting brought out the city's heavy hitters, including the Mayor, the Housing Commissioner and the State Senate president. 

Wrap around porch, side and front yard (Photo: Philipsen)

The officials dedicated 13 homes on what used to be 27 alley lots to a dozen applicants who had gone through a rigorous vetting process. Applicants, officials and onlookers toured the houses that feature a L-shaped porch, a living room, full kitchen, full bath and a small bedroom which can accommodate two beds.  11 days after the ceremonial opening no home is occupied yet, the finished homes still need the necessary use and occupancy permit (it will surely be issued, given that Housing Commissioner Kennedy attended the ribbon cutting) and a painter is pulling out all washer/dryer combos to touch up wall paint in the kitchens. One home is still waiting for a telephone pole to be moved so its rear and side siding and gutter work can be completed Reportedly it has no final designated taker yet. But other than theses small delays nothing stands between the new homeowners and a safe life: The houses are fully equipped with furniture, rugs, silverware, trash cans and even towels and a week's supply of food donated by Harris Teeter.  The front yards are landscaped, the side-yards are sodded  that will need some upkeep come spring. 

Senate President Ferguson at the ribbon cutting (HABC)

The 13 homes represent the Baltimore version of a concept that has been offered nationwide and in Canada as one of the responses to the housing crisis, the homeless crisis and the explosion of housing costs. The houses that are just a bit bigger than a single car garage are the extreme opposite of the trend to bigger is better of the last 70 years or so that has manifested itself in enormous SUVs and giant McMansions. Baltimore  tried the tiny house concept once before with a version that never matured beyond the prototype. Will these 13 homes open up a new era?

Cities that really have a space problem, New York and San Francisco come to mind, would indeed profit from a mindset that small is beautiful and the realization that home sizes have run amok while the number of people living in a household have steadily declined, but the last thing such cities need is a suburban freestanding home. In those cities the tiny house's urban sibling, the micro apartment, makes eminently more sense.
Meanwhile, in Baltimore, a village of tiny houses could be a way of offering the homeless a transitional structure that is better than a tent city. Those tiny houses, to be truly affordable, though, need to be stripped of kitchen and bath, the two most expensive items which in a transitional village should be located in a communal service center just like on a campground. (Community Architect, 2017)

Full kitchen with eating space (Photo: Sovich)

Houses without bath and kitchen would be transitional and not qualify for the accrual of equity by an owner. This especially ambitious Baltimore "proof of concept" straddles the minimum size of 400 square feet that the revised international residential building code (IRC) requires for a "tiny home", a classification that is commonly thrown around in the housing debate, but is terra incognita for permitting agencies, code officials, realtors and the lenders giving out home loans, in spite of the recent IRC and zoning revisions in most local jurisdictions. 

In 2016, we had adopted a tiny house amendment that would allow smaller footprint homes that are built slab on grade. ...the city zoning code does not allow tiny homes on wheels, but we do have the ability to build tiny smaller footprint homes, slab on grade (Alice Kennedy, Baltimore Housing Commissioner)

In spite of being grounded via footings and a concrete slab on grade (and not on wheels as some other tiny homes), no commercial lender was willing to lend the prospective owners the $25,000 sticker price

The bedroom is large enough for two beds side by 
side or stacked (Photo: Sovich)

for the home, even though the newly minted homeowners have the benefit of financial management counseling from the Hope Foundation and continued advice from the University of MD School of Social Work. This forced the Sappersteins to act as the private lenders in addition to the acquisition of the lots from the city for a $1000 per preexisting lot and carrying all of the actual construction cost (the homes cost five times the purchase price to construct). An actual construction cost is hard to come by since so much of materials and labour was donated by various vendors and companies thanks to Mark Sapperstein's good relations from his commercial projects.

Certainly the homes offer an attractive reprieve for those who were homeless. With an efficient heat pump, good insulation and the low mortgage the monthly cost would be tolerable even for people at 30% AMI or slightly below. The City offers to cover the closing costs  through a grant, provided the buyer stays in the home for a minimum of 5 years. Heating and cooling costs are further written down because the project used the Community Solar program to create off-site solar energy that get balanced with the actual usage in each home. The roofs were all oriented south for solar panel installation, however the community solar program was ultimately deemed to be more efficient and the only solar panel graces a small sheltered bench provided on the common ground that is slated to become a community garden. As houses are fee simple purchases, there is no HOA and no common ground as of yet. With the future community garden chances are good that a certain "village" feel among the new homeowners may emerge. 

13 homes are just the infamous drop in the bucket in light of the city's estimated 3000 homeless. Can the project scale up? Senate President Ferguson assumed as much in his ribbon cutting speech. But one cannot assume that all those donations would be available for future projects. How to scale is a question that developer Sapperstein asks himself as much as architect Randy Sovich who has started thinking about urban affordable infill housing more than 30 years ago. 

A precedent may come from our neighbors to the north, where the Canadian "Homes for Heroes" Foundation has villages for homeless veterans completed or underway in four cities.

Architect designed street numbers
(Photo: Philipsen)

A 2020 research from Home Advisor shows California as the most popular place for tiny homes, particular the small town of Landers which has a 28% tiny home share. 

Although the tiny-house movement is on fire culturally, the actual number of tiny homes out there is still quite small. Only a fraction of a percent of homes listed on multiple listing services qualify as a tiny home. (Realtor)

Key for any replicas would be a better relation between cost of construction and sale price. As any affordable housing builder knows, affordable units are not cheaper to build than market rate units. Smaller units are cheaper overall but the square foot price is actually higher. How can one achieve a drop in the cost of construction and open up other avenues than private charity to subsidize tiny homes in a similar way as other affordable housing? 

For cost cutting various possibilities come to mind: Shipping containers turned out to not provide the expected savings, but prefabricated panels may cut cost. Pairing two mirrored units as duplexes would save 40% of the exterior surface finish, wall framing and also energy and still allow the wrapped porch. A smaller bathroom as it is used in "micro hotels" may be cheaper. Getting the land for free or putting more units on the same amount of land would save some cost. (The Hope Village cut the original alley house density in less than half).  The biggest construction cost saving would come from scale itself. If various Baltimore CDCs would come together and develop a program of several hundred tiny homes scattered through neighborhoods in which previous small alley houses had been razed, builders could potentially see some of the same benefits they see in production homes by traditional home builders such as Ryan Homes or Lennar whose cost efficiency is the envy of every custom home builder. Plus the tiny house infill would restore the original Baltimore development patterns and fill the frequently not very useful alley green spaces

Some US states have started tiny home incentive programs, but Maryland is not yet one of those states. From financing to permitting and insuring, the path of the tiny home is not as well travelled as that of conventional homes and even with its new-found status in the residential code the tiny home still face many uphill battles. 

Covered bench with solar charged receptacles for
smart phones fabricated by Open Works
(Photo: Philipsen)

The trickiest question for the HOPE village in Baltimore's Oliver neighborhood is if these house will, indeed, create equity and wealth through homeownership. 

Now, 13 families have an opportunity to unlock generational wealth with long-term stability and equity when they open the doors of their $25,000 homes. (Baltimore Banner)

The wealth barriers that red-lining created are still present and the problems of depressed home values in disinvested and formerly red-lined neighborhoods likely affects tiny homes as well. It is unlikely that the $25k investment will put the new owners "under water" but whether a sale would recoup the actual construction cost remains an open question. Even though Oliver has seen investment and is considered a turn-around community, only time will tell if tiny homes would appreciate in value in tandem with the full size neighbors. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

The article was corrected after its initial publication. The original wrongly named Johns Hopkins as tutor. The actual tutoring is provided by UM-Social Work. The original stated that the total construction cost was 10 times the sales price. The Architect corrected this to 5 times.

On this blog: 

Does the Tiny House solve a real problem? (2017)

Elsewhere: 

Tiny Houses as a stepping stone to end homelessness

Evaluating Tiny Houses as a Solution to the Housing Affordability and Environmental Crises

Homes for Heroes (Canada)

Who owns Baltimore's vacant houses and how to fix them up?

The first steps of a new $3 billion effort to acquire and repurpose thousands of vacant homes across Baltimore have begun with a state pledge and a package of bonds being considered by city lawmakers aiming to undo blight. (Baltimore SUN)

How removing thousands of vacants kept the total number of vacants the same

Baltimore's vacant rowhouses have vexed mayors for all the decades Baltimore has been a shrinking city. Their programs to eliminate vacant houses had colorful names: Mayor Martin O'Malley inaugurated his Project 5000 (or P5k) in 2002 and in 2010 Stephany Rawlings Blake created Vacants to Value (V2V). The SUN reported that "it took [O'Malley] two years to clear title to the first 2,250 properties. It took seven months to clear the next 33." Vacants to Value was adopted by Mayor Pugh as well ran on all the way to the current administration. The City website described the project this way:

Vacant lots and buildings in Sandtown (Photo: Philipsen)

Launched in November of 2010, Mayor Rawlings-Blake’s Vacants to Value initiative seeks to encourage reinvestment in neighborhoods impacted by blighted properties by strengthening code enforcement, promoting rehabilitation; streamlining the sale of vacant city property, and, by providing new, targeted incentives for homebuyers and developers who invest in vacant homes. 

Back then the number of vacant houses was estimated to be 12,500. Not that these programs didn't work at all, but for every rowhouse that was repurposed, one or more new vacant ones popped up due to continue
d deeply depressed property values in large swaths of the city combined with continued population shrinkage. As the University of Baltimore showed in various studies, even one or two vacant rowhouses can create instability and ruin housing values and livability on an entire block. It would stand to reason, then, to focus on stabilizing neighborhoods with those individual vacant houses, the so called middle housing neighborhoods. However, none of the programs used such an approach, instead, all aim for the biggest total numbers of eliminating vacants. 

Vacant houses are not only destabilizing neighborhoods, they also represent a huge amount of lost revenue for the City. In a 2022 report the Abell Foundation estimated these staggering numbers:

• Vacants cost the city at least $100 million in lost revenue annually. The depressed value of vacant properties creates a shortfall of potential property tax revenue of approximately $50 million each year, with an additional $22 million loss attributed to the “contagion effect” on the value of nearby properties. The city could also benefit from at least $24 million in additional income tax revenue and over $12 million in additional water and sewer revenue if 15,000 vacant properties were occupied.

  

  The infamous "black butterfly" is clearly 
  visible on this city map of vacants

The number would be even higher if  one adds in the over 9,000 vacant land parcels where rowhouses once stood. The Abell report also mentions indirect costs:

The true cost of disinvestment and decline in the physical attributes of a city is far more than direct spending on maintenance and lost tax revenue, but these are the measurable aspects of vacancy. The broader costs to communities in terms of lost residents, public health impacts, and heightened crime are less measurable but very real. In Baltimore, these costs are also highly inequitable as they are largely borne by majority Black neighborhoods and Black homeowners. The economic value to the city of solving this problem is vast.

The State has been supportive in the efforts of reducing vacants as well. Even Governor Hogan, who had a rocky relationship with Baltimore City, sent a lot of money for Baltimore rowhouse blight removal under the name Project CORE (Creating Opportunities for Renewal and Enterprise). By mid 2021 CORE had spent some $123 million and eliminated 5,000 blighted units, mostly through demolition. In fact, there was so much demolition that some parts of West Baltimore today look more like green pastures (minus the cows) than an inner city neighborhood. Even before Mayor Scott the city tried various ways of generating funds for blight removal. Mayor Pugh tried a Neighborhood Reinvestment Fund which is still in place and reported a vacancy reduction of 40% in targeted clusters. 

In spite of all that, the number of vacant rowhouses remain stubbornly high and the revitalization of the most disinvested neighborhoods elusive. The number of vacant rowhouses today is given as 13,000, less than a tenth of which are reportedly owned by the City.  Overall, 7.2% of all residential properties were vacant and abandoned in 2022, 7.9% in 2010 and 8.2% in 2015nearly constant for over a decade, despite significant efforts to rehabilitate or demolish. .Equally constant is the magic number of 5000 units the politicians aim to remove with their programs; all the way to Governor Moore's new program.

City map of investment target areas (DHCD Dashboard)

The latest State initiative 

Now Governor Moore, his housing Secretary Day and Mayor Scott are ramping up a new effort with a combined $3bn State and City funds over 15 years that once again aims to bring 5000 unit into a productive future, including renaming Project CORE into the the Baltimore Vacants Reinvestment Initiative.  

“Right now, Baltimore has roughly 13,000 vacant and abandoned homes or structures and has more than 20,000 vacant lots. If we want to drive investment and we want to drive growth, we need to address the vacancy problem in Baltimore.” (Governor Moore)

The Baltimore SUN summarized the numbers: "Wes Moore set a goal of transitioning at least 5,000 vacant properties into homeownership or other positive outcomes during the next five years. Legislation passed in April pledges $50 million per year to the initiative, while state housing Secretary Jacob Day said Sunday that the state will fund an additional $27 million per year through a Baltimore regional neighborhoods initiative." 

The Mayor's neighborhoods TIF plan

Scott's overall housing plan has a few specific innovations, one of them a non contiguous tax increment financing district (TIF) that would leverage future tax revenues to finance immediate investments in neighborhoods. Two bills creating such as district and issuing bonds have been introduced. The idea is to generate $150 million over 15 years from TIF bonds. According to city hall, this is the first such TIF nationwide. State and TIF funds together will eventually add up to the $3 bn figure that has been batted around. 

At times it  seems as if anybody but the residents of Baltimore own the city. To date TIFs were mostly issued on behalf of corporations or developers who also routinely get large tax credits or concessions by swaying the Mayor, the entire City Council or the Board of Estimates, or all three. And then there are out of town private equity funds.

Higher taxes for vacants to suppress speculation

The Baltimore vacant house problem has a flavor that is not well known. The bad taste comes from speculative investors buying up cheap real estate and then flipping it to unsuspecting foreign buyers or just sitting on it doing nothing. Either way, the buildings don't get really improved. Many see this as a key reason why there are so many vacants, including those with aborted construction.

5 steps of intervention
(ReBuild Metro)

This year the Baltimore City Council finally took up the issue of slumlords and do-nothing speculators by proposing to tax vacant property at higher rates than occupied and used property. A bill was recently introduced and has the mayor's support and is co-sponsored by the entire council.

Foreign or out of town investors who buy Baltimore houses at tax sales or on the real estate market only to either "flip" them again, sometimes on the same day at a much higher price to unsuspecting far away clients or just hold on to them without doing anything are, indeed, doing nothing to turn the city around even if investment in general should be welcome. The bill to punish slumlords who sit on vacant property without investing with the expectation of some future windfall in the context of all the other activities aiming to reduce the high number of vacant Baltimore rowhouses is certainly a useful tool.

The far away investments are also troublesome because they are often based on deception or outright fraud. Buyers have been promised income from rents of tenants that don't exist because the houses have stood vacant for so long they are uninhabitable. Sometimes buyers receive proceeds form actual rents yet have still no idea that the house they bought is by no means prime real estate, not near the water but in the middle of West Baltimore, possible on a block where it is the only occupied one. 

Investors hoping some day they lemons would be valuable lemonade share one idea with locals: The idea that Baltimore cannot remain forever a laggard in urban development, population growth and prosperity and that one day its excellent location will prevail and the real estate mantra of "location, location, location" will finally come true. But their inaction makes this vision ever more distant. 

Long-term thinking isn't usually a speculator's strategy and so many of those rowhouse hoarders  stopped operation and subsequently leaving their buyers of useless homes hanging with nothing or, at best, partially started some renovations.

In Baltimore’s Harlem Park neighborhood, for example, just 53 of the 464 homes sold since 2017—12 percent—were purchased by owner occupants. In 2022, one of every five homes sold in the neighborhood (19.2 percent) was purchased by an out-of-state business, and nearly half were bought by in-state corporations with multiple-property portfolios.
“You just saw this backfill of corporate ownership come into this neighborhood, and it’s going to take years to come back from that,” Allenby says. Where real estate investors once focused on flipping houses for a quick buck, they now see rental properties as a long-term moneymaker. “These houses are just gone, likely in perpetuity, from a homeownership perspective.” (Source)

On the scale it is occurring this behavior has a chilling effect on Baltimore's recovery. The Baltimore Banner devoted two stories on the phenomenon. 

How a small group of investors turned distressed Baltimore neighborhoods into profit centers.

The Abell study notes that about 25% of vacants are owned by corporations. While a reversal is urgently needed and higher taxes on vacant buildings can discourage speculation, it will not remedy the core problem that causes owners to walk away from their properties and let them sit vacant in the first place. The root problem is that the cost of renovation is higher than the value the house will have on the market, putting it "under water", a condition in which selling the house would not recover the investments made in it. In spite of the dreaded term of "gentrification",  discouraging speculation must be coupled with raising the value of all houses in a community until they are worth owning by systematically removing vacants block by block. This will also benefit existing homeowners and generate generational wealth. 

The solution?

There is no silver bullet to overcome the thicket of low market values from decades of racism, disinvestment, lack of services, liens for unpaid bills, and general neglect. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and following this maxime unintended consequences line the path to revitalization. So do bad feelings. Communities lost faith, have no trust, fear gentrification and generally think that they are not heard and that whatever investments are not for them. 

Real time dashbord of Baltimore Housing (VBN stands for vacant 
building notice, the City's term for vacants)

Neither the City land-banking all the vacants nor complete reliance o private investment will solve the vacancy problem. Nor will large and stubborn investment in the vast areas of highest need (as the Enterprise Foundation tried) nor trickle investment as performed by many non-profits and community development corporations alone will work. 

The most successful undertakings seem to come from initiatives that Sean Closkey has spearheaded, first with Telesis and now with ReBuild Metro in Barclay and  Johnston Square. His comprehensive and neighborhood based approach can be summarized as being limited in scale, intensely local, relentlessly systematic, adjacent to strength, and equitably with the community. The ReBuild organization described the approach in detail in a 2023 report.

In summary: If the city can manage to get those new TIFs off the ground, if the State maintains its support funding, if the taxes on vacant properties succeed, and if the funds are used wisely, systematically and not in a scattershot manner, there could still be a chance to eventually revive the vast areas of disinvestment in West, Northwest and East Baltimore. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

I have written many times about the problems and the potential solutions to the problem. 

• Can the State save blighted communities in the City with $700 million? (2016) Here
• Can demolition of vacants add value? here
• One way to have fewer vacant rowhouses here 
• Homesteading instead of flipping -The myth and reality of the Dollar House here 

HarborPlace on the ballot - or maybe not?

Justified challenges or legal shenanigans?

In a surprising turn of events the Titanic isn't any longer smoothly sailing into a safe harbor of a ballot question approval. Instead, a circuit judge found ballot question F about HarborPlace confusing and hard to understand and invalidated it. The question begins "with the purpose of amending the provision dedicating for public park uses", then meanders in an endless boundary description to end in expanding the allowed uses in the park "to include commercial uses, multifamily residential development and off-street parking" as well as increasing the area where such uses would be allowed. In a more surprising turn, the judge also found that amending the City Charter isn't the right vehicle to address this type of land use and zoning question and hasn't been right even when it was done the first time around nearly half a century ago ago for the current pavilions. 

A 2025 vision of revamping the pavilions (MG2 Architects)

The ballot language was drafted by the city solicitor and approved by the State Board of Elections. This approval was disputed in the Circuit Court by a group of Baltimore residents opposed to MCB's development proposal. Should the judge's decision stand, the ballot question would be invalid and MCB would not have the rights to build the stuff they propose.

The Election Board quickly appealed the judge's decision to the State Supreme Court which now has to decide when and how it will take up the issues.

The wording of the ballot question is just another step by the city administration bending over backwards in paving the way for MCB's redevelopment proposal from rezoning to the Mayor standing with the developer every step of the way. 

Challenging the wording is legitimate.

Naturally, the Circuit Court agreeing with the petitioners contesting the ballot question caused cries of foul from the Mayor, city councilman Eric Costello and even a SUN editorial.  All pay little attention to the legal matters at hand, namely the wording of the ballot question and instead attack the judge directly and arguing that the judge overstepped her bounds and robs city residents their democratic right of self determination. Costello even tweeted about the "worst kind of voter suppression". Mayor and councilman seem angered by the court's location outside the City in Anne Arundel County where the Board of Elections is located. 

Question F on the ballot: What?

The crying that the judge jeopardizes democracy is ironic considering that the confusing ballot question is only the last step in of many steps of depriving city voters from a real say in the matter in the first place. From the time when Mayor Scott found MCB friend Bramble as a willing buyer of the pavilions to today the matter was presented as a forgone conclusion with no serious alternatives. Voters are to believe it is MCB or nothing. Clearly this true. Frankly, HarborPlace would have a much better chance to actually see the improvements most that everyone agrees are needed in a timely manner if one would pursue a less grandiose plan. 

Why some people oppose MCB's development

With the appeal still pending its a good time to  review again why many say that changing the City Charter was a bad idea in the first place and why allowing high-rise apartment towers, an indoor mall and an office building in any city park is a bad idea, and this particular city park is no exception. 

Let's contrast MCB's key arguments with observable reality.

Pro: MCB's key argument is that the pavilions are obsolete, must be demolished and that HarborPlace has become so downtrodden that only a very big change can help bringing people back . They further argue that their $490 million project that includes 900 apartments will bring the amount of additional people to the area that are needed to support the shops, restaurants within the project and beyond. In fact, MCB says that their project and the revival of HarborPlace will be a catalyst for reviving all of downtown. 

Alternative plan by Mahan Rykiel 2015,
no more Pratt Street pavilion

Con: The reality is that the pavilions were indeed neglected for a long time and that in the end a lot of the tenants had left. However, they were considered structurally sound when Ashkenazy bought them they did not find them obsolete. Before they abandoned the project they hired Seattle Architects MG2who drew up to to bring the buildings up to modern standards, presented them to the city's design review and even made some improvements to the Pratt Pavilion. The reality is, too, that MCB has legacy tenants operating in the pavilions to this day (The Cheesecake Factory) and has added a slew of new tenants doubling the occupancy rate in a short time. 

Con: The reality is also that the millions of visitors each year who visit  HarborPlace dwarf anything that 900 residences can offer. People come for events such as the wine village, the Christmas village, the ice rink, visiting tall ships or simply to enjoy being at the water. The fully redesigned Rash Field open space is always full of people. The attraction have never been the buildings but the activities.

Pro: MCB's project is large and injects potentially a large amount of money into the City's economy. The private cost of $490 million for the buildings relies on an additional $400 million of public money being spent on fixing the promenade, bringing the total to one billion dollars. Public investment would enlarge the park area by adding parts of Pratt and Light Streets to HarborPlace and connecting the McKeldin Plaza. Pratt and Light Streets would be turned into attractive urban boulevards that are a pleasure for pedestrians and easy to cross. MCB's project includes about the same lease area of restaurants and shops as the current pavilions, with income form the apartments supporting the commercial uses. 

Pratt and Light Streets today are more highway than
urban boulevard

Con: The reality is that the restaurants and shops were originally intended to be amenities to the enjoyment of the Inner Harbor. Their original success was based on very careful programming and scheduling regular events. They were never meant to be profit centers but engines to add value to the entire area.

 Baltimore has similar cases in Belvedere Square, at the Cross Street Market or at Cross Keys where the mix of shops and eateries is seen as a necessary amenity adding value to the surrounding area. 

The shops and restaurants at HarborPlace similarly could add again value to the surrounding areas and MCB would profit from them since they are controlling one property at the corner of Light and Pratt and another one on Pratt across from the World Trade Center. The construction of mixed use towers there would be far more useful with the same revitalization effect.

instead of this proven approach MCB turns the $80 million problem of the pavilions (market value plus estimated debt on them) into a $490 or even $ 1billion problem if one adds the expected public investment. It isn't known how much of the $490 million cost is underwritten and how MCB would convince lenders that they can build 900 apartments without a single designated on site parking space or that they have accounted for all the extra cost that comes from building highrises on fill that was once water.

 Baltimoreans just have to look around to see how well those supposedly game changing mega projects fared in the past,  from the "Superblock" to La Cite's Poppleton renewal to Port Covington or EBDI. Some never came of the ground and all of them shrank substantially in the process. Failures can also be seen for smaller projects closer to the Harbor: After the demolition of a beautiful landmark the News American Site (now controlled by MCB) has set vacant for decades. The Mechanic Theatre was also demolished with no reconstruction in sight. The former McCormick Spice company was demolished and it took over 30 years until at least one phase of redevelopment was completed with resdiential highrise (which di not noticeably alter how many people are in the area). 

MCB rendering of their proposal (Our Harborplace website)

Pro: MCB picked up several suggestions that were part of earlier redevelopment plans, namely connecting McKeldin Plaza, reducing Light Street and making Pratt Street more attractive. The ideas were on the table but languished. MCB's proposal has moved them to a solution accepted by City DOT. MCB hired a landscape architect and designed the additional spaces as Freedom Park and a series of well landscaped spaces. These improvements would make the waterfront indeed much more accessible and attractive and enhance any activity there. MCB also suggests fortifying the promenade by lifting it by 3' against rising sea-levels. 

Con: Of the $400 million expected public improvements only some $70 million are actually secured. The Red Line shown by MCB on Pratt Street would be better connected to Metro if it ran on Baltimore Street. A "preferred alignment" has not yet been selected by MDOT. Lifting the promenade by 3' would drastically later the experience of the water and does little to protect surrounding areas where other parts of the promenade remain on current elevations.

Pro: MCB points to numerous global waterfront projects that consist of a mix of parks, commercial uses and residences, many of them very successful and well liked, including The Wharf in DC, Toronto's waterfront, and New York's Battery and Brooklyn Park projects.

Incremental steps instead of a mega project?

Con: The reality is that in most of those cases the waterfront promenades, parks and public spaces were funded by the for profit portions of the developments, such as apartments. 

Also: In most cases the residences don't sit directly along the water but are well set-back. In none of those precedents were apartment towers built in a long ago designated public park.  

Conclusion

In conclusion, the argument that 900 apartments placed inside the park are necessary to revive HarborPlace is not convincing. 

Apartment towers, no matter how well designed are definitely not an attraction and likely would introduce conflicts between public uses/events and private homes. 

And yes, Baltimore voters should have a say in this drastic change of the City Charter, even if the Circuit judge thinks that the extra protection of this public park should never have been anchored in the City Charter. But the question must be understandable and simple. It should say something like this: "with the purpose of adding commercial uses, multifamily residential development and off-street parking on 4.5 acres of the designated public park known as HarborPlace". 

Fixing up what is wrong with HarborPlace without changing the City Charter and within the old zoning restrictions would be a faster, much cheaper and way less disruptive approach than Bramble's Fata Morgana, regardless how the Supreme Court of Maryland will decide on the ballot question.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

 

The most myopic way to do "comprehensive" re-zoning

 Baltimore County, the largest jurisdiction in the Baltimore region, has only seven council members who yield incredible power. For example in zoning.

Baltimore County Masterplan: Ransacked by the
Council

This was once again on display this week when the county council voted about nearly 400 zoning issues in a process that is as obtuse as its name: Quadrennial CZMP. This stands for comprehensive zoning map process, whereby the "map" part stands for the fact that this is geographically specific zoning that shows on the map (versus changes to the zoning code that can happen any time). The operation goes over two years from the time applications are allowed to the day of the vote and is repeated every four years. In those two years all applications for re-zoning are placed on a log of issues that are posted online. Each county resident can apply for zoning changes on any parcel of land that is zoned. Each issue is reviewed and commented by the planning department and the planning board of the county, both can suggest modifications to the original application. 

Mixed use that could be TOD: denied for Lutherville

The rationale for doing all the re-zoning in one consolidated process sounds convincing. It allows to see the bigger picture of what all changes combined would do to the County as a whole and how those changes would advance or hamper the goals and objectives of the county masterplan. That is the theory. The practice is quite different and actually resembles the opposite. 

It is hard to know where to begin with a critique of the process or describe all the places where it goes off the rails. As former Baltimore County planning director Keller stated in the Baltimore Banner, "the system pretty much sucks". 

To begin with, this round of rezoning falls half way into the old 2020 masterplan and halfway into the new 2030 masterplan which is now in effect. In other words, applicants went by a plan that was on its last breath when they filed for zoning change while the council voted when the new plan is already in effect. Zoning is an act of planning that by definition must look forward and think ahead.

Online access to the log of issues

The adoption of the new masterplan in itself was another example of the council power going awry. The council with its almost absolute powers ran rough-shot over the plan in the last moments of it being adopted as the guiding document and after years of preparation. Several renegade council members took the most important designation of the plan, the nodes out. One council member nixed out all nodes in his entire district, a random and capricious act. The Planning Director sums this up in his "director's report" on the CZMP:

Council’s amendments removed, or altered, a number of the Node Place Types that were provided in the draft Master Plan 2030, creating voids in the Place Type mapped areas. These have been designated as Undefined in the land use Place Types. The absence of a land use designation in these areas prevented determinations of consistency or inconsistency with Master Plan 2030. 

 The planning department did, in fact look at all the issues in the aggregate in a time consuming process that included "research regarding development proposals, zoning history, applicable school capacity, infrastructure and field visits", review of "comments from several county agencies, meeting with the applicants and attending public hearings to obtain community comments. The director's report summarizes:

 A total of 389 rezoning requests were received, totaling 9,439.55 acres. Requests for the NC zoning designation, alone, totaled 2,174.84 acres. The Department of Planning recommended zoning changes to 73 issues which involved 725.89 acres.

So far so good, the planners riddled down the chaos to a manageable change, had the council not messed up the new masterplan and weren’t the Masterplan out of sync with refining... But the orderly and systematic review of the planning department becomes much less meaningful when they have to hand the entire issue log over to the Planning Board which is far more developer friendly and recommended way more zoning changes than the department.  

The real kicker, though, is that the councilmen (yes they are all men) don't have to abide by neither what the planning department recommends nor what the Planning Board finds, nor by anything what the public told them. 

In the voting reality that took place once again this week, each council member has not only the last word on voting up or down on the application itself or the recommendations they can actually change the zoning in the the final vote to something different altogether. Yes, that's right! What actually stands at the end of a 2-year arduous process may have nothing to do with what the applicant wanted or what the planners and planning board members recommended. It may be a decision that has never been vetted by anyone at all and it will stand for four years unless somebody can prove to the Board of Appeals that there was an actual error, that it was grievously capricious or that the area in question has undergone such drastic change after the zoning was enacted, that it would be absurd to uphold it.  

In that vain, and in a move that defies all planning logic, Councilman Jack rezoned a former mall that is now a partially occupied shopping center in Lutherville right next to a light rail station not to mixed use (as applied for) as needed for a transit oriented development, but to DR16, ie. relatively low density housing which makes all existing use "conditional", i.e not "by right" anymore but subject to being revoked when any change is planned. 

What if the other council members find a particular move of a colleague especially obnoxious or egregious? In theory, they could vote the district representative's motion down. In reality, though, this has never happened in the history of the council. In part, this has practical reasons. No council member can understand the complexity of nearly 400 zoning issues and even less discuss them in a session where all are supposed to be voted into law. But the "councilmanic courtesy" principle goes beyond those practical matters. It  is an overall "gentlemen's" agreement  that applies the rule of "mind your own damn business" to countywide planning where it surely isn't appropriate. 

It is particularly inappropriate in a county that has a severe housing shortage and is under a mandate to create 1000 affordable housing units in 10 years. It is inappropriate in a county where NIMBYs are at time openly or veiled racist and where the population is stagnant because there is nobody who guides development in a manner that is rational and above board. 

Council members cannot take donations while the CZMP is underway, but, of course, they take them before and after to an extent that citizens' trust in local decision in Baltimore County is largely lost. Or as the chair of the policy advocacy group "We the People" writes in an email to members:

Why does this all matter? Because allowing each Councilmember to run his or her district as an individual fiefdom divides us from one another, and deprives us of the opportunity to build on our collective strengths. We are not seven individual counties, united by a loose alliance of roads, sewers and water pipes. We are One County. (Nick Stewart, We The People)

Division is a big loss in a time when only confidence in democratic institutions can hold the society somehow together. Gaining such trust is still the easiest on the local level where "potholes" are neither Republican nor Democrat", but it Maryland's third largest jurisdiction needs a very different council for that. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

 

A Vision for Baltimore (Part 2 - A Strategy)

Recently I reviewed the Morgan State Capstone thesis work by Nicholas Chupein about urban highway removals and specifically concepts to remove the JFX titled "Windows of Opportunity" and a new, not yet published book by internationally known architect V. Chakrabarti about "connected design titled "The Architecture of Urbanity - Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy" . After some consideration I think that combining a new transportation paradigm with the concept of urbanity and connectivity would make a solid foundation for a new vision of Baltimore.  See part 1 here

A new sound is coming from the Mayor

The several dozen Baltimore residents that recently made it to a public outreach meeting under the title Downtown Rise heard a very different tune about traffic directly from their Mayor.  Gone was the talk about congestion that dominated decades of public meetings about transportation. Instead the Mayor talked about walkability, connections and transit and how prioritizing those aspect would revive downtown.

Mayor Scott speaking about a walkable downtown
(Photo Philipsen)

Baltimore lags farthest behind in transportation and walk score when compared to peer cities.[...] Baltimore has historically prioritized regional vehicular mobility over pedestrian connectivity.[...] A high-quality pedestrian experience can be created with investment in diverse mobility options for a more livable, connected downtown neighborhood. (Downtown Rise 10-year plan)

From Mayor Brandon Scott to Downtown promoter Sheilanda Stokes one after the other official went to the podium to praise the benefits of a city built around walk access to amenities, built for the residents rather than suburban commuters and focusing on an attractive "public realm" rather than a high throughput of cars. 

Investments in the public realm are critical to increasing equitable access to resources and enhancing livability (Slide from Downtown Rise)

The presenters pretty much followed a line of thinking that many cities had long embraced and that MSU student Chupein had laid out in his study titled "Windows of Opportunity". He placed the idea of removing the lower JFX into the context of the international movement of reconfiguring urban transportation by removing urban highways, strengthening transit, walking and biking and making streets inviting to sit down and enjoy urban amenities. Many cities removed freeways and replaced them with boulevards, local streets and entire new neighborhoods. 

Rochester: Small city streets and housing instead of
a freeway ditch. (Photo: Philipsen)

Baltimore, frequently a Johnny-come-lately, years ago embraced "complete streets", a bike masterplan and a green network plan. If implemented and combined those policies would result in just such a livable city. However, until now no administration has shown enough courage to really turn the ship. Every time there was push-back from those who are stuck in the avoid-congestion-paradigm backed off, especially the city's DOT. In Baltimore one would detect fragments of complete streets but nothing close to the comprehensive implementation of those policies that one can see in Portland OR, Washington DC, New York City, Vancouver, Rotterdam, Paris or Barcelona. Of course, so far Baltimore is only studying the removal of a freeway, at best it has nibbled at some edges as in the case of the Highway to Nowhere (H2TN). The current "Reconnecting Communities" grant pays Baltimore $2 million to study how the H2TN could reconnect communities but has little in terms of a vision to show for it as of now. 

The urbanized walkable city is in Baltimore's DNA. When the City had nearly a million residents it had no urban expressways, almost no one-way streets and a very pedestrian and bicycle friendly environment, augmented by a huge network of streetcars. Nevertheless, one should not confuse the vision of a walkable pedestrian-centric city with nostalgia for the 1950s, a time of  dirty air, unhealthy crowded living conditions and rampant open racial discrimination. Nor should the vision be seen as a liberal pipe dream of  the "coastal elites" since smaller towns in rural red states aspire to safer mor livable main streets just the same.

hHighway to Nowhere, Baltimore (Photo: Philipsen)

While the walkable "20-minute-city" concept emulates some aspects that seem normal in smaller towns such as not wasting long hours each day being stuck in traffic or meeting people in the street while doing errands by walking, or letting kids walk or bike  to school, the library or the pool with having to fear that they would be run over by a speeding car, these activities can work in large metropolises as well without reversing everything that has happened in the last 75 years or so.
Yet, drastic retooling is needed, especially in zoning and the allocation of life, work and recreation, not only within a single jurisdiction, but with an entire region. It is clear that the suburbanization of America has sucked the life out of many cities and has brought car dominance to our life, especially in the suburbs.

The reurbanization of Baltimore is not done by replacing a few parking spots with these skinny platforms placed in the gutter where one can sit in front of a restaurant and eat one's food a couple of feet away from buses, trucks and SUVs, even if those COVID induced expansions of outdoor eating options are fundamentally a step in the right direction. 

Market Street Frederick, MD (Photo: Philipsen)

If Baltimore would be following architect and urbanist Chankabarti's notion of connective design plus his notion of urbanity and joy it would become a city to live in not one to drive out of. A city to be in, not one to drive through, a city that keeps its residents and grows instead of one that shrinks. Connectivity follows the removal of barriers. Free flowing traffic is always a barrier. And by the way, connectivity is also needed to bring all those many, many plans and policies in alignment that have stacked up without implementation. Connectivity also means eliminating the silos, coordination across departments and pulling jointly in the same direction.

For estimating the effects of connectivity consider how disconnected Baltimore is: Downtown is disconnected on all sides from the surrounding neighborhoods by an almost complete noose roadways designed for maximal throughput of cars, including Martin Luther King Boulevard, the JFX, President Street, Key Highway, Pratt Street, and Light Street. Those last two streets is another case where the Mayor and DOT sing a to a new tune. 

While their hopping on the wagon of MCB's HarborPlace redevelopment ideas is criticized by many, the embracing of the envisioned "road diets" and closure of the Light to Calvert Street connector is almost as revolutionary as the partial closure of Time Square for cars was in Manhattan. After languishing for years, the idea of connecting McKeldin Plaza was not only suddenly endorsed but also followed by a traffic study of the entire area that calculated the effects.  In spite of following a very traditional approach of counting traffic and reallocating the entire volume of cars, the study still concluded that the suggested lane reductions and closures would be feasible with only 14% increased travel times.

Existing and proposed Pratt Street cross section
(Dept. of Planning )

While one can certainly argue with the methodology of the traffic consultant, the benefits of making Light and Pratt Street less dominated by fast moving cars are obvious if one wants to revitalize downtown by benefitting from the waterfront and the visitors that go there or to the convention center, the National Aquarium or the other attractions. 

West Baltimore is cut in half by the Highway to Nowhere and Druid Park is isolated from the surrounding neighborhoods by the JFX on one side and the 10 lanes of Druid Park Lake Drive and Druid Hill Avenue. The beautiful urban wilderness of the Jones Falls is largely ruined by the expressway frequently running on top of it. Historic Oldtown and Jonestown have been turned into ruins by the Orleans Street viaduct and I-83. Sharp Leadenhall was disconnected from Ridgely's Delight and downtown plus it was amputated by the spur of I-395. 

All of these dividers and community destroyers were built so people could come in quickly during the morning rush hour and leave equally quickly in the evening. The new paradigm would be nothing less than a reversal. Just as the emphasis on free-flowing traffic in and out of the city helped empty it out, a reversal would help the city gain new residents and keep existing ones and it would also mean less not more traffic. If people live near where they work, shop and amuse themselves, there would be much less driving and driving and getting around in general would be organized differently. Dismantling the road barriers in favor of connectivity in all directions would not only make the city far more livable, it would also be less congested. "Impossible", most people would cry, "costs too much and is illogical to boot. The entire city would come to a standstill, and  people would want want to live in the city even less than today". 

Taking back the streets for people: Rotterdam, (Photo: Philipsen)

Actual examples of success help. As I have shown in a previous article, the Dutch city of Rotterdam and many other cities have proved that it is not only possible to take the streets back from cars that it  doesn't mean impossible grid-lock and that it can mean growth. Our neighbor DC was over long stretches considered an urban basket case, a shrinking population left many vacant houses behind, just as in Baltimore. In the last 30 years the District not only grew by many 10s of thousands of residents, it actually also experiences now less gridlock than before. Many of the new residents don't need to drive because they live in the middle of everything they usually need and have good transit options. 

Well, you may say, Baltimore isn't Rotterdam or DC, it has less transit and more poverty. True, both but the liveable city follows a different model of mobility that decreases congestion. Instead of channeling all vehicles into a few freeways and major arteries from where they are released in non digestible concentrations into local streets that have been made one way arteries with prohibited rush hour parking (such as I-395 dumping into Conway and Howard Streets or the JFX into President Street), the already much lower volumes (fewer commuters) would be much more evenly distributed into the local grid of streets. Aside from the fact that residents in older quarters often have no garage and need on street parking so that rush-hour parking restrictions are a real burden, a distributed network has redundancy that makes traffic much less vulnerable to disruptions. Instead of one route, there are always many more that will make "gridlock" less likely.

Washington DC, Center City pedestrian streets
(Photo: Philipsen)

But true, more and better transit would be needed as well. It along with the better general quality of life would then reduce the concentrations in poverty by adding additional residents.

Initially called Project Livable, that group grew to be representative of 30+ institutions who focus on downtown or are headquartered downtown. Those organizations included Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, the University of Maryland Medical System, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, the National Aquarium, and so many more. That group, under the leadership of Governor Wes Moore and Mayor Brandon M. Scott, spent significant time talking about connecting our assets and our neighborhoods, about how we help people move from one experience to another (Downtown Rise 10-year plan)

In fact, "traffic" is not a god-given constant but the result of many factors, especially local zoning and land use policies. The walkable 20 minute city would generate less traffic and the absence of quick drives across larger distances would also reduce unnecessary trips and reverse "induced demand".  Chupein, in his work about removal of the JFX, quotes research that after systematic analysis shows that up to 40% of traffic simply disappear. Let's explain how.

Subway station in DC: A different type of mobility
(Photo: Klaus Philipsen)

A recent traffic study addressing the lane reductions proposed for Pratt and Light streets concluded only a 14% increase in travel delays and suggested that even that would not necessarily materialize because some traffic would disappear thanks to "learned behavior". Critics quickly ridiculed this notion as magic thinking. In reality, this traffic study doesn't go nearly far enough in considering a comprehensive mitigation strategy.

Disappearing traffic is not nearly as magic as it may appear. To understand this, all it takes is a look at how we arrived at all this traffic in the first place. It didn't just come from sprawl alone. "Induced demand"  inevitably showed up every time transportation capacity was increased. When trip-time is reduced, people will make new decisions. They will make additional and even longer trips since they now take less or the same amount of time people previously deemed acceptable. They will chose more distant locations acceptable as their home, drive further for groceries and just about anything else until one gets a situation like Los Angelos used to be before their mayor turned transportation policy around.  In the LA of old residents zipped around on freeways on the way to daycare, jobs, shopping or the movies. LA became first famous and then infamous for its mobility woes. Freeways along with cheap energy and policies that promoted single family home-ownership induced suburbanization not only in LA but also in Baltimore. I-695 opened up Carroll County for people who work in the Baltimore core metro area and I-83 opened up north Baltimore County and even Pennsylvania to commuters. The result is that vehicle miles travelled (VMT) increased far more than population. Americans drive further per year than most anyone else in the world, and no, it has very little to do with the size of the country. 

Before and after being made car-centric

It stands to reason that these processes are largely reversible. Just as more and faster roadways induced demand, so will fewer and slower roadways reduce demand. Baltimore City can very well be re-urbanized if the City provides the amenities, the services and the type of housing modern households need. One can see how from shifting the transportation paradigm an entire comprehensive vision emerges.

While one could argue what is the chicken and what the egg in the matter of urban flight, there is no doubt that reduced livability due to car centric planning accelerated flight and that, conversely,  quality of live achieved by a new transportation paradigm will assit in attracting residents. A connected City that doesn't isolate neighborhoods and doesn't starve them from investment and people will have more resources to provide good services. New areas that are no longer impacted by the noise and fumes of high-speed, high-volume and nearly impassable roadways will become thriving communities. 

Based on his book, Chakrabarti would agree. He blames the flight to the suburbs and the resulting inefficient sprawl development patterns for isolation, health problems and the excessive energy hunger that characterizes the US. He and many others demonstrate that the denser city uses less energy and allow a healthier and happier lifestyle. And dense, he says, doesn't have to mean towers. Chakrabarti has good news for a rowhouse city like Baltimore: He identifies the connected three-story building as ideal for achieving urban density and energy self sufficiency. Calculating roof area over living area used for solar cells has a lot to do with his conclusion. Indeed, our very own row house can achieve about 50 units per acre, close to what the old style Parisian five story elevator apartment buildings also achieve, which, Chakrabarti points out would be prohibited under modern building codes.

Space for people: Baltimore Inner Harbor 
(Photo: Philipsen)

Even if downtown were again connected to the surrounding neighborhoods, it would still lack a lot to be called perfectly walkable or desirable. Yes, it has sidewalks an all streets, yes, there are crosswalks and curb cuts and at times sidewalks are even a bit wider than the minimum and at some places there are trees and sometimes even a spacial pavement that isn't plain concrete. But all of that is not enough to make anyone who has a choice want to walk along one or several city blocks. 

For that outdated bourgeois figure of the urban "flaneur" (a person leisurely walking through the city with no other purpose than to enjoy the walk) there usually must be some kind of destination and ideally "entertainment" along the way. It is true for everyone else as well, even if walking has a strict purpose. Sociologists have found out that the biggest urban enticement is other people. Not only for entertainment as in people watching, but for safety, information exchange and comfort. If there are no other people it usually doesn't feel right to be in the street. If there are plenty of people it feels safe. Just walk through Manhattan and you can see people and entertainment everywhere:

Street vendors, food trucks, storefronts, buskers, small parks, museums, benches to sit and watch, sometimes street cafes like in Paris, it rarely gets boring. But  one doesn't need a big metropolis for those types of experiences. A recent Friday afternoon on Frederick's Market Street was almost as entertaining,  as are Canton's O'Donnell Square, Federal Hill's Cross Street, Thames Street in Fells Point, Eastern Avenue in Highlandtown or Hampden's "Avenue". 

Manhattan: All day action (Photo: Philipsen)

But downtown Baltimore's streets and many neighborhood streets feel deserted, are often dirty and have not much to offer. The patrolling security cars of various benefits districts or flashing police lights on top of lamp posts only add to the unease. Complete streets need much investments in the public space, form trees to benches. But equally important is what lines the streets. Without restaurants, shops and services the prettiest sidewalk won't help. A restaurant that puts some umbrellas out and has enough space to place more than those skinny "cafe tables" in a tight row will change the character of a whole block. If traffic moves along slowly it just adds eyes to the street and is fine. But if the roadway is a speedway with four lanes all in one direction like Pratt Street even an amply dimensioned sidewalk with trees and planters and big outdoor seating areas can't compensate for the din of the roaring vehicles.  retail, entertainment and restaurants lining the streets requires residents. It easy to see the feedback loop which, by definition, has no one single begin and end point. 

For a vision of Baltimore it is as with the proverbial knot: One has to find the strand on which to pull in order to undo it. To many Baltimoreans the city appears to be tied up in a knot of urban problems that nobody can undo. I hope I could show in this article that a new transportation paradigm that emphasizes network connectivity instead of linear, radial connectivity and trip avoidance rather than trip facilitation may be just that strand that loosens the knot from which then everything else could follow. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA