Will German discounters reduce Baltimore food deserts?

In the epic saga how food is sold in America the story doesn't follow a straight line in spite of there general trends:

• stores have become bigger and Wegmans with its suburban 100, 000 square-foot behemoth markets has taken the crown when it comes to size beating out even Walmart Supercenter grocery stores. 
• food store have started selling more produce and fruit and generally healthier food with an increased share in organics. 

  

  Lidl US prototype store

• many food stores have gone more upscale forcing old time players like Giant, Safeway and Kroger/Harris Teeter to become more like Whole Foods and Wegmans.

But then there are those disrupters which defy the trends. Only a few people know that three especially disruptive players all come from Germany and that they simply extended their ground-war there to the vastly larger United States. The store brands that buck the story line and sell food in smaller stores than even a traditional Giant (12,000sf vs typically about 40,000sf) and for lower prices than even those new Korean supermarkets (Lotte and Plaza) are named Aldi, Trader Joe's and Lidl, another German Discounter. Last year Lidl had announced its arrival with great fanfare (100 stores during the first year, see Forbes: Aldi vs Lidl: The Games begin in the US) but this year the company has already scaled back its attack after some disappointing initial sales and the uncertainty that Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods has brought to the grocery market scene. Lidl's slogan:

Our roots are European, but our vegetables are grown here. (Lidl website)

Baltimore food access and food deserts (Red)

The history of the older Aldi chain has a lot in common with the American discounter Walmart: Both chains were disrupters long before that label became common, both were founded by autocrats who named their business after themselves: Sam Walton creating Wal-Mart and Sam's Club and Theo and Karl Albrecht creating Al-Discount =Aldi. After a feud they divided Germany neatly into two halfs, with Theo owning Albrecht North and Trader Joe's and brother Karl owning Aldi South. Theo who died in 2010 was then ranked by Forbes as the 31st richest man on earth. Karl Albrecht died in 2014. Sam Walton died already in 1992, but his family is holding on to the Walmart empire and is considered the richest family in America. Sam Walton opened the first Wal-Mart in 1962, like the Albrecht brothers, he did begin his retail career right after WW II.

The early origins of the Aldi empire: Food and spirits

Both Walmart and Aldi can be called discounters and both have brought fear to their competition, their employees and their suppliers by governing with an iron fist and a single focus on lowering cost through increased efficiency. Both cater to the lower income masses but attract shoppers way into the middle class. Walton initially put his stores into underserved rural areas and Aldi into the urban fringes and suburbs.  Aldi came to the US in 1976. Walmart went to Germany much later and experienced a rare defeat there: The chain has 8,500 stores in 15 countries but was not successful in Germany and ended its presence there in 2006.

Aldi Sud's offspring, is Trader Joe's, an interesting twist on the Aldi success story in that it nurtures the very American brand of the western frontiersman, mixed up with Tiki culture, both non existing in Aldi's homeland. TJ's ties to Aldi are kept a secret, while the company spins on its website the yarn of the original Trader Joe who renamed the Pronto chain he had bought after himself (The first TJ store is still going strong in Pasadena). There are over 400 TJ stores in the US and no Trader Joe's stores in Germany. Trader Joe's has brought the discount idea of small stores packed with their own private label products to the wealthier areas by mixing the frontiersman concept with that of fresh and healthy food for better prices. Initially Aldi and Trader Joe's did not compete in the same market but now they do, both stores are a staple in the Baltimore suburban food retailer scene.

Aldi Catonsville

The Aldi chain owns over 5000 stores worldwide, with around 1,700 in the US. By 2020 Aldi wants to expand to 2,500 stores at a cost of $5 billion. Also part of the fortification: A  $1.6 billion face lift of most stores with new emphasis on produce. Should Aldi would meet its goal, it would make the German discounter the third largest grocery-chain in the US. The aggressive expansion is likely a reaction to competitor Lidl arriving at US shores. Lidl is also family owned and belongs to Dieter Schwarz, 78, a very secretive man who started his discount chain in 1973 following the footsteps of his father, also a grocer. Today Lidl beats Aldi with 10,000 stores in Europe, but inside Germany Lidle has only half as many stores as Aldi.

Lidl's plans are especially important to Maryland where the grocer had announced major investments, starting with a massive 800,000 sf regional headquarters distribution center in Cecil County, scheduled to open in 2018. Unlike Aldi, which is mostly hanging out in the urban fringe, Lidl has assured Mayor Pugh that they would consider placing up to five stores in Baltimore City, which would be a major success for a city permanently in search of new retail to locate in the city.

Aldi store in an underground shopping passage in Stuttgart, Gremany

How tenuous Baltimore City's position in retail is, can be measured with Target's  announcement this week that it would close its Mondawmin store. This is a huge blow to this rare urban retail center, West Baltimore and the entire city even though, Target does nothing to resolve food deserts. Lidl's big start in the US has not quite developed as planned and the company has reduced its presence in Georgia and also withdrew from a store in Prince George's County, according to the Washington Business Journal. A new announcement for an additional store in Lanham was made this week. The SUN had reported that the company would not confirm specific store sites in Maryland, but Aberdeen, Annapolis, Eldersburg and possibly Berlin on the Eastern Shore have been reported as possible sites.

Baltimore City is absent from that initial list. Urban locations are also in conflict with Lidl and Aldi's preferred US template of building stores from the ground up and snatching up real estate on under-performing commercial sites where other retailers failed.

The folksy aw-chucks image of Trader Joe's

In Germany both discounters often operate within larger mixed use buildings preferably located directly at subway stations, Often the store can be found in the lower level below department stores or other retail, as it  is common in Germany. The German discounter stores remain very frugal and bare-bones unlike Aldi's refurbished stores, and what Lidl has proposed as its US model. It seems to aim more for the Trader Joe's crowd. Several Aldi stores operate within Baltimore City, out on Fayette Street near Pulaski Highway, on Washington Boulevard and Cold Spring Lane but all are strip center type facilities within a sea of parking.

In principle, the German model of a smaller discount grocer with good fresh foods could be exactly what Baltimore needs. But before that happens, these chains would need to change their layout and design formula. Meanwhile, city shoppers need to drive to the outlying Aldi stores for decent affordable food.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

NPR: Discount Grocers Aldi And Lidl Give U.S. Stores A Run For Their Money

"PlanMaryland" is dead, long live "A Better Maryland"

Governing by executive order has become common practice in Washington and Annapolis and so have been the attempts of  current office holders to eliminate and eradicate the policies and orders of their predecessors. Rational people will find this unproductive.

Hogan announcing a new State Development Plan effort (Aug 2017)

Governor Hogan has been very critical about some of O'Malley's central policies, including stormwater fees (which Hogan called a "rain-tax"), rail transit ("boondoggle"), smart growth and especially "PlanMaryland", O'Malley's initiative to coordinate local land use planning with larger State goals.

It isn't surprising, then, that Governor Hogan rescinded his predecessor's executive order which instituted PlanMaryland in December 2011 and replaced it with his own order. What is  surprising is that it took Hogan until August of this year to do so. In front of County representatives convened for the annual MACO conference he declared:

 “finally put local planning authority back in the hands of local government, where it belongs.”

As if the previous plan did anything different. While Hogans new executive order kicks off a new approach to a State Development Plan, judging from his Executive Order the goals are quite similar to the those of his predecessor's plan:

Goals and objectives of Governor Hogan's new Executive Order

The New Better Maryland Plan kicks off this fall with a series of public meetings.

PlanMaryland came under fire from Republicans ever since  Governor O'Malley and his Secretary of Planning initiated the first public meetings which is kind of curious because there was never any doubt that the State not only has the right tom plan but actually has to do it by law.  Maryland law, specifically Title 5 includes State Planning and the requirements for a "State Development Plan":

The Department shall prepare and from time to time revise a plan or plans for development of the State. The plan or plans collectively shall be known as the State Development Plan.

(b) Purpose of Plan.- The Department shall prepare the Plan to promote the general welfare and prosperity of the people of the State through the coordinated development of the State.

(c) Basis of Plan.- The Department shall base the Plan on studies of governmental, economic, physical, and social conditions and trends. 

Paving over green spaces for new subdivisions (Photo: Philipsen)

Even though a State Development Plan and regular updates are legal requirements, Republicans screamed bloody murder when the previous administration did it and quite per the law included environmental concerns  such as sea-level rise and climate change. Republicans declared a "war on rural areas" and saw a power grab  when PlanMaryland included land use considerations, clearly a domain of local government and equally clearly something that the State is supposed to look at. Title 5 states:

The Plan shall contain recommendations for the most desirable general pattern of land use in the State. The recommendations shall be based on the best available information concerning: 

(1) environmental and natural factors, including climate, soil and underground conditions, topography, and water sources and bodies of water;
(2) present and prospective economic bases of the State;
(3) water and sewerage facilities;
(4) trends of industrial, population, or other developments;
(5) habits and standards of life of the people of the State; and 

(6) the relation of land use in the State to land use in adjoining areas.  .    

The trench war about PlanMaryland resulted in a plan that was rather defensive in tone stating right in its introduction:

PlanMaryland is not a substitute for local comprehensive plans nor will it take away any local planning and zoning authority

Anyone who has read this far may conclude that a State Development Plan is just a matter for planning geeks and that the debate about terms and goals is esoteric and irrelevant to the life of real Marylanders. A few facts make clear, that land use and development affects everybody in the State:

Over the last 40 years, our consumption of land has grown at three times the rate of our population growth. While it took three centuries to develop the first 650,000 acres in Maryland, it has only taken about 40 years to develop the next million acres of land. Since 1950, we’ve lost 873,000 acres of farmland – that’s more than twice the area of Baltimore County – and we’re projected to lose another 226,000 acres by 2035 if current trends continue. That is not sustainable.
PlanMaryland is our first strategic plan for long-term sustainability. It’s a road map to better help us accommodate the 1 million additional residents Maryland is projected to have by 2035, while at the same time better protecting the Chesapeake Bay and saving more than 300,000 acres of farmland and forest. (Governor O'Malley in the intro to Plan Maryland)

Whether one likes the term smart growth (note that  Hogan's new executive order still includes it) or not, the proper arrangement of development on the Maryland landscape is hugely important not only for environmental protection but also for efficiency and economic development. According to Gerrit Knaap, Director of the National Institute for Smart Growth at t5he University of Maryland, the new effort holds the promise of developing a cpativating vision for the entire state:

PlanMaryland was criticized by rural officials as usurping local land use control, but in reality, it simply placed existing state programs such as Priority Funding Areas, Rural Legacy areas, Sustainable Communities and other state designations on a single map to better coordinate existing state programs. It’s primary shortcoming, however, was that it did not provide a compelling vision for a 21st century Maryland. That vision is precisely what Maryland needs right now. (Gerrit Knaap, SUN editorial)

Low density scattered development like this is very costly

Sprawl and scattered development is inherently inefficient, be it for schools, fire or police, road construction, transit, street lighting sewer, water, cable or electric power. Inefficient arrangement of development replacing towns and villages and their surrounding undeveloped buffers with carpets of uniform subdivisions is also bad for "social capital" and community spirit.  Those endless subdivisions have no "there there", i.e. no centers, no "commons", no places of civic life or interaction.

Many planners predict that those soulless subdivisions without public transit and miles away from the nearest grocery store or doctor's office will be the slums of tomorrow when many baby boomers will be too old or frail to drive and the younger generation continues to look for urbanity and an exciting lifestyle.

There are many good reasons why land use is and should remain local. But there are also many good reasons why the State needs to coordinate local land use and exercise some oversight when it comes to stormwater management, septic tanks, development in sensitive areas or transportation needs. There have been too many cases where local land use plans were renegade plans that ignored water service boundaries, their own designated priority funding areas or any restrictions on development in sensitive areas.

It is obvious that even if all local plans were locally optimized "smart" development, they wouldn't necessarily add up to a smart state. There must be rural and urban counties, it simply doesn't make sense to homogenize the entire state. If each county tries to attract gigantic distribution warehouses, whether there is good highway access or not, if each county wants large lot subdivisions, shopping malls,  outlet centers and business parks, to use just a few examples, probably none will succeed and none will be atrractive. Nor does it makes sense for each county to make their own land use and comprehensive plans in isolation and then expect the state to pick up the tab for schools, roads, clean-up of the Chesapeake and all the societal cost coming from inefficient non sustainable development. This is where a vision for the State is needed, a bigger concept that assigns different functions to different areas, each with a viable economic base, all adding up to more than simply the some of the parts.

Urbanity is not limited to big cities: Hagerstown (Photo: Philipsen)

It is easy to see that rural areas feel disadvantaged if everybody aims for concentrating public investments in the big population centers telling the rural areas that they should remain scenic but providing no hint how the economics should work and where residents should earn their living.

Real smart growth must create viable rural economies from farming to logging and from hospitality to health care. Traditional farmers have been under siege across the nation with  the industrialization of agriculture on the one side and encroaching housing developments on the other. Urbanites and rural residents share the goal of maintaining Maryland's family farms. To achieve that, farmers cannot unilaterally be burdened with all the environmental regulations, whether it is septic tanks, nutrient loads, stream buffers or critical areas.

 While those protections are important for a healthy Maryland and a healthy Bay, there must be cost sharing arrangements that prevent the unwanted demise of even more family farmers. Rural protection cannot mean that new residents can shut down farmers for noise or odors or for the construction of silos or farm-stands to sell their produce or dairy. Anybody who looks carefully into these matters will recognize that even under  previous administrations and their smart growth focus the recognition of the rural areas was there, for example through "the right to farm law", which curbed residential recourse against normal farming "nuisances".

Maryland farming: Sometimes there is noise or smell

For moving forward, the battle line between smart growth and rural rights,  between environment and economy, between local land use and State control  have to be abandoned because they don't make any sense. Healthy cities, towns and villages are as much in everyone's interest as a healthy environment. A sound economy requires efficient allocation of resources. Scarce resources can't be spread around like water with a watering can, they must be strategically used to leverage virtuous cycles of economic development and prosperity. One can only hope that the Governor's "Better Maryland" initiative does not begin everything from scratch but builds on past success and learns from past failures.  The time horizon assumes that a new State Development Plan would be completed in July 2019. Clearly the administration assumes that it will be in office beyond the 2018 election.

So far there are no details known about the plan except for a few general guiding principles. A website for the effort is still "under construction", similar to the MD Department of Planning, the lead agency for the new plan, which is also under construction with a Secretary that the General Assembly refused, who could receive salary only after she received a new job title, and whom Senate President Miller called unqualified.

The State's task to have State Development Plan is too important to get mired in the standard binary debates of either or. Maryland can only succeed if plans soundly for a sustainable future. This isn't a matter of Democrat versus Republican, but in many regards a matter of life and death.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Hogan's Executive Order 
Baltimore SUN about Hogan's announcement of a new plan
O'Malley's Executive Order Plan Maryland
Carroll County Times editorial

Should Baltimore's Amazon bid be public?

When developers submit proposals to cities, or contractors proposals to developers, the submittals are always kept highly secret until either a public bid opening date (in case of public bidders) or until the winner is awarded (in case of private bidders). There are strict rules for public bids, whereas private bids may never be published, unless they include public money.

Boston's submittal

But what if the public is the bidder is private and the responder public, as in the case of Amazon? A recent SUN article sheds an unexpected light on atangled web:

In Baltimore, city officials are now hiding behind a private developer and say it was really Sagamore that submitted the bid. So no need for disclosure.  The highly publicized bid signing event, though, shows the Mayor signing the bid letter for all to see in a ceremony at Sagamore's "Garage"?

“In fact, it was submitted and retained by the developer of Port Covington, the land being proposed as the location for Amazon in the City.” (H.B. Ruley, Chief City Solicitor)

Is the city require to make its proposal public  ("Dear Mr Bezos") or is it allowed to say to keep it secret because in the competitive environment of this case secrecy suites the matter better? Baltimore is not alone with this question, especially when it comes to to the fine-print in which the matter of financial incentives are disclosed.

CNN Tech put its finger on this issue even before the bids were due with a story titled:  Cities try to lure Amazon but want to keep the details secret.

When Amazon began a search for a second headquarters a month and a half ago, its approach was radically public. The request for proposals was posted online. It outlined the company's criteria, including generous tax incentives.
Cities responded with splashy PR campaigns to woo Amazon and its 50,000 well-paying jobs. But when it comes to the nitty-gritty details of what cities are offering, which are due Thursday, officials haven't been quite so forthcoming -- which could keep citizens in the dark about what cities are giving away until a deal is nearly done. (CNN Tech)

Baltimore's favorite Amazon site: Port Covington

The answer to whether cities should make their bids public could be found in public disclosure law but it could also be found in good public policy.

For an instructive example Baltimore wouldn't have to look further than Boston, a prime competitor for landing HQ2 (by some considered a top contender).  Beantown put its entire 193 page bid package online using the affair as a giant opportunity for touting Boston as an innovation city. Just as in Baltimore, Boston's site proposed for HQ2 is in private hand and has already received various design and zoning approvals.

Maybe Boston found it easy to make the bid public because it doesn't contain any open bribes in the form of tax credits or financial gifts. Boston is assertive enough to assume just describing its policies, plans and investments along with its urban qualities will be good enough. Toronto (97 pages) also made its bid public (Including a letter from Prime Minister Trudaeu starting out "Dear Jeff") and so did the State of New Hampshire (78 pages, slogan: “Benefits of Boston, without all the headaches”).

What's inside the box?

Much speaks for for the public approach, especially since bidders are free to disclose their bids as far as Amazon is concerned. Officials told the Seattle Times that nothing on their side requires cities to keep things a secret. So it comes down to legal but also ethical issues such as how a city or state values transparency, how it treats its citizens and really nothing less than what it thinks about democracy.

The Amazon craze has put a long festering issue on steroids: the shadow existence of city and state development agencies which were frequently created with the express purpose of avoiding public discussion so they can better deal with private corporations. (See also my article "The Shady Role of Urban Development Corporations"). What rights residents have and should have to know where city leaders spend their tax dollars is laid out in disclosure and sunshine laws. Common Cause, a voter advocacy group going back to 1970, which is frequently involved in protecting voter rights and public interest, has offices in many states, including Maryland. The public interest group is concerned about the Amazon secrecy. It "raises significant red flags" told Maryland Common Cause executive director Jennifer Bevan-Dangle the SUN.

Signed bid letter: Everybody up there is a public official

Aside form law and ethics, there are practical reasons to handle the Amazon bids open and in public: The bids touting the respective bidding cities should have a much bigger audience than just Amazon.

In many bids considerable amounts of public resources were used for preparing these bid books. Anybody who has ever responded to a request for proposals knows, that the times are over when simple responses were sufficient. Today responses to proposals are thick, full color, often printed on large format paper, involve graphic designers and often animated graphics or videos, no matter how big or small a possible deal may be.

Boston's submittal to Jeff Bezos is a sophisticated propaganda brochure for, by and about Boston that can be used in many other instances than the Amazon bid. With 283 submittals received by Amazon the chances to win are relatively slim even for the most promising contenders. It is smart to leverage the resources that went into preparing the proposal for as many purposes as possible. The biggest leverage of all: A united citizenry that rallies behind its city government and pulls in the same direction from the beginning. A bottom-up consensus approach not only spares a submitter the embarrassment that would ensue when after Amazon announcing shortlist  location a fractured citizenry would begin local warfare because they were never included or knowledgeable about  the bid and its incentives. It also represents a much larger opportunity for correctly addressing the real issue of a public response: What Amazon can do for the city is chooses.

Bostons favorite Amazon site: Suffolk Downs

A united community in which the leadership not only isn't afraid of telling its residents what it stuck into the envelope that went to Amazon but arrived at the proposal based on board consensus would be most assuring to anyone considering the right location for a huge investment.

It would also be a lot more assuring to the citizens of Baltimore.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Baltimore SUN: Amazon bid not made available
Goldmann Sachs and Baltimore's Amazon Bid
Boston Bid
Boston Promotional Video
To win Amazon HQ2, cities should abandon secrecy

Homesteading instead of flipping -The myth and reality of the Dollar House

Few problems vex Baltimore residents more than the fact that a growing shortage of affordable housing continues to coexist with an also growing stock of vacant homes. It would seem to be so obvious to connect those two problems, and voila, no more vacants and no more homeless and no housing waiting lists. Sounds easy, so why isn't it done? Didn't Baltimore do that once with great success? Whatever happened to that Dollar House Program?

Dollar Houses at 600 Stirling Street (Baltimore SUN sketch)

Few Schaefer years stories live on with the same mythical power as the one of the Dollar Houses and the pioneering "urban homesteaders". Lore has it that it turned whole communities from "vacants to value" long before that program title existed and created stable, desirable and attractive communities such as Otterbein.

If Schaefer could figure it out, why not any of the subsequent mayors from Schmoke and O'Malley to Rawlings Blake? Even the current Mayor, Catherine Pugh, used to gush about the Dollar House program as a candidate and vowed  that she would bring it back. Now she toes the line of her Housing Department staff who  have said for years that therefore the program can't be replicated.because the federal programs to fund it are missing today. They also say that the seven year Dollar House program did only rehab 158 houses, as many as they convert now in a good year. So who is right? Can and should the program be revived and what would it take?

Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke has been around long enough to remember first hand experience with the famed program of the 1970’s that began on Stirling Street and transformed Otterbein and Barre Circle. She isn't buying it that one couldn't revive the program and forced a council hearing on the matter.

City residents and community activists crammed into City Hall Wednesday in hopes of bringing back the “Dollar House” program that revitalized underprivileged neighborhoods in the 1980s under former Mayor William D. Schaefer. Some of Baltimore’s top leaders and community advocates pleaded with members of the City Council to reinstate the program with the intent of rehabilitating vacant homes that number from 16,000 to more than 46,000 throughout the city. (Baltimore Watchdog, Oct 26, 2017)

It is and has been easy to obtain a Baltimore for a dollar. The problem is what it costs to fix it up. A full gut rehab costs upwards of $120 a square foot, for a 2,000 sf three story home this amounts to $240,000 and for a small two story 1,200 home it would still be $144,000. That’s a good chunk of money,especially if the house sits in a neighborhood that has no homes that are valued over $100,000, often far below that.

Stirling Street in 2015 (Photo Philipsen)

Even though in 1973 houses were fixed up for $20,000, the renovation cost problem always existed.

To solve it the Housing Department under Bob Embry as Commissioner and Jay Brodie as his deputy invented the Dollar House program and State Senator Lapides as a preservationist supported it.

It provided low interest loans to the "homesteaders" that bought a home and committed to rehabilitation within a set time-frame. (Low interest meant 7% in those days when market rates were as high as15%). The money for the loans came from City bonds with support from the federal programs including Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). The Dollar House program started in Baltimore but was quickly picked up by HUD which created in 1974 a national Urban Homesteading Demonstration Program which allowed 22 other cities to  take part in similar revitalization strategies. Even today, HUD still advertises their own Dollar Homes program.

Some are convinced that the famed Dollar House program of the 1970’s that transformed Otterbein and Barre Circle can be brought back, if Housing would just again fund the high cost of rehabilitation through special bonds, so that homesteaders wouldn't have to rely on private banks who are unlikely to give risky loans. But proponents must ask themselves what asset the recipients of such special those loans would own in the end, provided owners would be as able as those original homesteaders to successfully pay off the mortgage. They are said to have had a perfect record and no default.

If the house would turn out to be a piece of real estate which would assess lower than the cost to rehab and pay back the loan, then the program wouldn't work. Original homesteaders couldn't sell for five years, but they sure didn't want to be "under water" and not be able to sell at all. How did the old Dollar House program avoid this conundrum?

Homesteaders checking out homes in 1975 

One of the reasons for the repayment success was careful vetting of the applicants in person by a five person panel of non-city people (Otterbein). Designated staff from several city departments were at hand to guide homesteaders through the process. Successful and valuable renovation was achieved through design guidelines which usually were developed together with the homesteaders. This type of multi-agency multi-level support is mostly missing today (except for the annual V2V resource day).Small-time developers, builders and wannabe homeowners often get buildings from the City only to  fail midways, being left to their own devices, then walking away from half improved properties.

The other reason for success was context. Just as any developer  knows that a building isn't any good if it sits in a lousy area (location, location, location!), Baltimore City did everything to make sure that the new homesteaders wouldn't just own a nicely fixed up house but that the house would sit in a viable and attractive neighborhood. The recipe for creating attractive neighborhoods had several ingredients:

First, the Dollar House fathers decided to only deal with clusters of homes instead of scattered sites, so no fixed-up house would sit at the end in a sea of boarded up houses dragging down its value.

Second: The clusters of vacants for which the program was leveraged had not only been carefully scouted out, they all sat in pretty attractive areas next to downtown. The houses were vacant not because of residents had fled a terrible neighborhood conditions but because residents had been forced out to make space for ill-fated interstates or urban renewal plans. Once the silly freeway construction projects were defeated, a reversal of fortune was quite possible, once one put some effort and creativity to it.

Otterbein infill. From Design Guidelines

Third: The cluster areas and new communities were masterplanned. The Otterbein area, today typically used as the most successful example of the Dollar House program, was carefully masterplanned by Cy Paumier, Principal of LDR, a then well-known land planning firm. The charming community we see today, with its new infill townhomes, carefully restored historic houses, the rear alleys with screened parking, the cobble stone, and the preserved street grid, even the inserted matching material highrise did not just happen on its own. All this is the result of good planning and public investment in public infrastructure, streets, alleys, water, sewer, parks and playgrounds and detailed design guidelines worked out between the homesteaders, city agencies and consultants.

No such public effort accompanies the current Vacants To Value program. Today, if there is a masterplan for an area at all, it is because a larger master-developer stepped in and prepared their own plan as in the case of Barcley. An exception is still the somewhat mysterious Green Network Plan which Baltimore Planning currently advances and which may result in a more connected green infrastructure of parks and trails throughout disinvested neighborhoods.

In short, today's many more vacant properties are the result of urban flight, extending over vastly larger areas of the city than the vacants of the 1973 when Baltimore still had 890,500 residents.

Even back then, not all Dollar House communities were as successful as Otterbein and Barre Circle. Stirling Street in Oldtown, the first homesteading area with 42 Dollar houses, still looks lovely, but the City plans in the surrounding area including the Old Town pedestrian mall failed spectacularly and today Stirling Street homes sit in total isolation. Homes there assess just a bit over the low City median price of $125,000.

Stirling Street homesteaders on the cover of Leisure &
Travel, 8/78

Another big part of the Dollar House success was the funding. Bob Embry wanted a self-supporting loan approach for the program and established the Baltimore Rehabilitation Environmental Assistance Loans, (REAL) funded by repeatedly vote-approved local bonds, a way of funding sites outside of the designated urban renewal areas with their federal funding. In 1972, a two million dollar bond issue passed, with the first 29 loans released to those who qualified in 1973. Not all funding was local, some came from federal Section 312 money, a revolving rehabilitation loan fund with a focus on assisting low income households. At the time the Fair Housing Act was already in effect and loans were given fairly to all who either had the skills to do "sweat equity" (do work on their own houses) or enough resources to demonstrate that they could pay back their loans, clearly a more middle class focus, even though successful homesteaders were a diverse group.

Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke speaking on TV about
the Dollar House program

In spite of the glorious image which the Dollar Program has attained over time, it certainly didn't run without glitches in its day. Otterbein's progress was once again threatened by plans of placing I-395 in such a manner that the renovated houses were greatly impacted. Once alignment was finally changed some homesteaders disliked that the Federal Reserve was placed as a buffer at the edge of the community. In Barre Circle two designated houses were accidentally demolished by city crews. Homestead applications experienced such delays that at one point only 27 houses were processed in three years.

Otterbein facades. From Design Guidelines

Of course, the question of gentrification also played a role in the discussion about the Dollar House program then, when ACORN housing advocates placed sit-ins against the program's lack of focus on low income participants. Federal law was subsequently changed. Today local tax exempt REAL bonds in their old form are no longer legal. Under President Nixon and his HUD Secretary Romney the long road of defunding HUD began, which continues to this day.

In spite of those changes, Mary Pat Clarke thinks that communities want a hand in repairing their communities. “Baltimore wants to fix itself,” she says, and judging by the unbroken enthusiasm for the Dollar house and her revival idea, she is right. While Housing's current program "Vacants to Value" does not preclude local engagement, it lacks the distinct touch of the community-based "bottom up" approach that the Dollar House program emanated especially in contrast to the then popular top down urban renewal and its large scale displacement. In V2V communities see outside investors swoop in like vultures too often with flipping in mind instead of homesteading.

Vacant houses in Sandtown (Photo: Schamp)

The vast number of vacants in so many communities all around the city seems disheartening. For a new bottom-up program to succeed, promising clusters need to be identified, masterplans created, amenities financed but most importantly, one must stop lumping all vacant buildings into one pot. Instead, one needs to create at least three or four categories, not only a listing according to markets (as the City does) but also by metrics such as preservation value and structural/architectural condition. Not all houses need a costly "full-gut rehabilitation", even though the threshold for falling into this category is pretty low. A Dollar House Program would be most successful for houses that need only  upgrades and not an entire rebuild. Those, once they go into foreclosure, are fetched up by flipping sharks that do nothing to build back a community.

In the end the nostalgia about the Dollar House Program is not just semantics but a lot about psychology. The sense that people can turn communities around with "sweat equity, risk taking and commitment if they can get a helping hand from an equally committed and hands-on City government is still there and could be a potentially powerful force in the gigantic task of re-filling thousands of vacant houses. The task his too big for a single program to succeed. But the Mayor and the new Housing Commissioner would be well advised spending less energy on explaining why the Dollar House can't be done anymore and instead figuring out how they can tweak their current efforts so this community energy can be harnessed again.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Baltimore SUN: Council brings back hearing on the Dollar House Program
History-of-the-dollar-home-in-Baltimore/
Baltimore's Brick Walls, Jennifer Gerdom 

Zoning: Revisiting parking regulations

Hardly anything defines the shape of a city or suburb as much as parking policy. Decades of zoning rules and policies that could never get enough parking have transformed the US into a country that designates more man-made space to cars than to people.

This astonishing insight becomes obvious once we understand that the US has more motor vehicles than licensed drivers (over a quarter billion motor vehicles in 2012) and provides  about eight parking spaces for each car. Each restaurant seat, each office work station, each retail store and each dwelling unit typically must provide parking based on peak usage.  Assume that each parking spaces requires about 360 sqf of paved area including drive aisles and access ramps etc. and it becomes clear just how much land and real estate is devoted to storing those metal boxes.

Parking can destroy the city fabric

This waste of space and the associated defacing of villages, towns and cities has long been decried by advocates for transit, the environment and smart growth.  But only recently does this failed approach begin to hit a nerve with developers, banks, businesses and in due course with those who write the zoning codes.

The waste eventually hits the pocket book, not only of private investors who fund the parking spaces but also of government which not only doesn't see much return from that specific land use, but has to contend with the traffic that all the parking generates. Most of the eight spaces held ready for each car in the country are "free", i.e. there are no user fees they, therefore, don't generate a return on investment. Fewer people clamor for easy parking and more ask instead for urbanity, interesting shopping experiences and lively downtowns. Many put their actions where their wishes are by using ride-share, bicycles and their feet. No wonder, developers see all the concrete embedded in parking as a waste of their resources as well. It now often stands empty.

Parking has been a contentious policy focus in cities and towns around the United States for decades. Residents, visitors, and business owners often lament what they see as parking shortages or unfair prices. Meanwhile, surface lots and parking garages have chipped away at once vibrant urban centers, taking up what is often the most valuable land in the region. (Mayors Innovation Project)

Use distribution on a commercial building in Olympia, Washington

As if lost urban vitality, high cost, wasteful use of space and increased traffic stemming from ample supplies of parking weren't enough to justify a drastic change in policies, the most revolutionary disruption yet is clearly visible on the horizon: The autonomous vehicle, the self-driving car, van, bus and truck.

Conventional wisdom has it, that the autonomous vehicle will lead to a drastic reduction in parking needs. Most planners optimistically assume that consumers will turn their back purchasing their own cars and will opt instead for fleet-based shared vehicles presumably because those autonomous vehicle won't be as much fun to own. Assuming that this speculation is applicable, parking demand goes drastically down because fleet vehicles won't be parked all day long as most private cars are. Instead, they will be on the move most of the time like taxis or Uber/Lyft cars  already are, especially if dispatch is optimized by software similar to the current online apps.

In short, parking policies find themselves at a juncture where three trends form a perfect storm:

• Cities striving for urbanity, livability and quality of life which is antithetical to seas of parking, 
• Developers shedding non profitable ballast such as parking and 
• AV's making standard parking superfluous 

One should imagine that cities around the world would be scrambling to figure out how to position themselves and their policies to meet the challenge and redistribute their newly freed precious spaces.

Urban regulation and public debate is slow in catching up, even though cities are slowly adjusting their zoning codes to be more reflective of  new trends such as mixed use, transit oriented development and adaptive reuse. Some even have now parking maximums on their books in lieu of the previous minimums. But generally, a future of possible AVs leaves urbanists entirely cold when they can't find a spot to park overnight.

More spaces through angled parking (Sun photo)

Urban politics, just like politics in general, rarely considers the long-term but focuses on today, tomorrow and the years until the next election. Parking is still at a premium in many urban neighborhoods, no matter how popular Uber, Lyft, ZipCar or bicycling may be. In a rowhouse community such as Canton, where rowhouses are routinely less wide than a car is long, and many alleys or backyards can't be accessed by today's large cars and SUVs, curbspace is so precious that parking wars are common. The usual debate revolves around residential parking permits that keep non-residents out, angled parking that adds more curbside spaces, and in winter, whether putting chairs on shoveled spaces is moral or legal.

As a result, no matter how imminent the AV may be, complacency is still the norm across parking authorities, transit agencies and departments of transportation with very few exceptions. Movement can be detected in the Baltimore Department of Planning, not at Transportation. The planners just having barely survived the epic battle of re-zoning, sense that they didn't get everything right with their newly minted parking regulations. Citizens and developers are still unhappy, not necessarily because of the dawn of a new age, but because the rules of Title 16 (off street parking and loading) are as seen too lax by some. In response they will be convening a working group to review the parking requirements once again.

Sloped floors: Not suitable for other uses

The department will arrange a series of public working sessions to wade once again through all the issues. The title 16 requirements are relatively flexible for downtown and old rowhouse districts, account for shared parking (overlap from uses that have an offset in time) and even include requirements for bicycle parking. The required minimums are not excessive and the most destructive forms of parking (in front of businesses, on vacant lots etc.) are mostly outlawed. So progress has been made.

maybe it would be best, instead of re-litigating the past once more, the City would get out of the tradition of mandating parking altogether. Parking may actually be an area where "the market" could function quite well as a regulator, not for the design of parking but for the amount that will be provided. Developers in the more expensive real estate markets have already begun to build garages with extra heights and level floors to be able to re-purpose them in the future for non-parking uses.

Managing parking on public space

The City's efforts should concentrate on how to re-purpose public spaces, i.e. the streets which make up about 25-30% of the entire urban space. The red Baltimore bus only lanes are an example of re-distribution of public space. Bike-lanes another. However, with AVs even those rather rigid assignments may become obsolete. On the other hand, the spaces for loading, staging and unloading robotic share cars, delivery vans, drones and the like will increase. If the future is electric, those vehicles need to be charged and space for that needs to be designated as well.

AVs will also change transit, likely creating a much more fluid line between transit and share cars, requiring space for transfer hubs.

In spite of all that, though, walking will remain pretty much what it is and if people can get their eyes off the screens of their phones the desire for beauty and enrichment will remain as well. In other words, there is a good chance that architects, planners and designers can return, at least partly, to the tradition of their craft as it was practiced before the automobile took over.

Re-designating public space

Unless another entirely less benign future will take hold of our city. Absent regulations and policies, the AV could take the city over in entirely: as an endlessly moving bot that is making its rounds without any occupants, for example for getting pizza for its owner.

The working groups should consider this nightmare as well and what policies can prevent it.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Zoning: Montgomery County Parking
2011 Montgomery Parking Study (Nelson Nygaard)
Philadelphia Parking Design Guidelines
Urban Planners' Enemy (Governance 8/2016)
Vox/Mobility Lab video: The high cost of free parking
The slow death of urban parking: Don Pittis 7/2017
Urban Parking Economics and LandConsumption: A Case Study of New Haven,Connecticut and Cambridge, Massachusetts
Urban Parking: Mayors Innovation Project

Related articles on Community Architect:
Parking the Bane of Cities

This from Baltimore Planning:

The NEW Baltimore Zoning Code has been in effect since June 2017, and the Department of Planning (DOP) has received comments from the public that parking requirements are still too high, while others are concerned that parking requirements are too lenient. We have decided to openly review the parking requirements for both cars and bicycles.
Any persons interested in this topic are invited to participate in a series of open meetings to discuss what works and what doesn’t work in Title 16 of the Zoning Code.

Interested in Parking Requirements in Baltimore City?
As part of our ongoing review process, the Department of Planning (DOP) is looking at this Title to see if additional changes are needed.
​
Per nationwide trends, Baltimore's new Zoning Code reduces parking minimums and encourages mixed use and shared parking arrangements. This sparked debate during the Zoning Update process.
Topics will include;
Are parking requirements too high or too low?
Should they be refined for different districts?
Other ideas?
​
The meetings will be held on the following schedule:
Wednesday Nov. 8, 2017 5-7pm
Wednesday Nov. 15, 2017 5-7pm
Wednesday Nov. 29, 2017 5-7pm
Wednesday Dec. 6, 2017 5-7pm
Wednesday Dec. 13, 2017 5-7pm
​
All Meetings will be held at the Department of Planning Boardroom
​
417 East Fayette Street 8th floor
​
Be sure to have Photo ID to enter the building. No need to RSVP, but questions may be directed to zoningcode@baltimorecity.gov.

​

The nuts and bolts of the "forgotten" Baltimore transportation priority letter

Being the new Director of Transportation in Baltimore can't be much fun. Michelle Pourciau, who for a short time headed DC's DOT as an interim Director and then went into private consulting, was plunged head on into the Potomac Street protected bike lane controversy, had to oversee the shut-down of Baltimore's new bike-share program before the system even reached its first birthday, and is now facing a barrage of criticism for having failed to write the annual transportation priority letter.

Pugh announces Pourciau as DOT Director in June 2017

Meanwhile numerous other transportation issues remain unresolved on the docket, chiefly the absence of the Baltimore Red Line, the Baltimore Circulator which needs a financially sustainable re-set, various expensive studies regarding possible reconfigurations of one way streets on which previous DOT directors never acted and a belligerent young Councilman who wants to see action on his Complete Streets bill and stormed dissatisfied out of a recent meeting with the new director.

Forgetting to write this year's version of the annual letter to the State outlining the City's transportation priorities is "inexusable" in the words of State Senator Bill Ferguson and "has consequences". Ferguson knows that the letter is part of Maryland law, but he also knows that the transportation reality frequently unfolds in a manner that is quite different from the due process as it is spelled out in COMAR (Marylands law). Exhibit #1 for that truth is the cancellation of the Baltimore Red Line by the current Governor which had been in all plans, letters and documents for over a decade.

Nevertheless, the embarrassment of the forgotten letter (it has been submitted by now) sheds a light on the convoluted and byzantine process in which transportation dollars are allocated in Maryland. The process plays out between local jurisdictions, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (ours is the Baltimore Metropolitan Council, BMC) and the State. Maryland is one of the few states in the nation where all transportation funds are consolidated in the State's "Transportation Trust Fund". Thus the State holds the keys to the money vault and playing well in the system is a precondition for transportation success.

The use of this integrated trust fund approach allows Maryland tremendous flexibility to meet varying transportation service and infrastructure needs.(MDOT)

The process of budgeting for transportation involves an alphabet soup of acronyms. The local letters are supposed to inform the State's Consolidated Transportation Program (CTP), which together with the regional Transportation Improvement Plan TIP results in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program. The draft CTP is compiled in September, the final CTP goes to the General Assembly in January.

Chapter 725, Acts of 2010 requires additional clarity and standards to define how the Department of Transportation evaluates and selects proposed major capital projects for inclusion in the Construction Program of the CTP. (MDOT)

It is so easy to write such a letter that all but three Maryland jurisdictions managed to write it in time, a sample letter is even posted online. The funding request letter is part of a legislated annual routine in which local cities, towns and counties vie for the precious State transportation dollars via the letters and the famous "road trips".  (Baltimore City's face to face meeting will take place this Friday at City Hall).

MDOT is requesting that counties submit their priority letters on or around the first of April each year.  Priority letters should be endorsed by the Commissioners/Council (and/or County Executive as appropriate), as well as a majority of the local legislative delegation. Priority letters should detail how each priority project supports the goals of the Maryland Transportation Plan (MTP) , including the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act goals, and are consistent with the County’s land use plan goals. 

The letters provide more sophisticated jurisdictions (such as Montgomery County) the opportunity of describing their entire set of multi-modal transportation priorities and pressing for grants and discretionary federal funds. Baltimore's 2017 priority letter  has now been produced and can can be found here. There was no City letter in 2016. The last Rawlings Blake letter of was written in the September 2015 and defiantly included the Red Line as the #1 priority and also new MARC stations and investments on the existing ones with highway priorities listed last.

Comparing the 2015 letter with the current one, quickly stitched together in response to the SUN article about the missing letter, the 2017 letter comes out as much less concise and all over the map. It starts with Port Covington without even asking for the specific light rail link that project wants to see funded. It then skips to "wayfinding" and back to the Hanover Street bridge, paving on bus routes, signal infrastructure, the Circulator and mentioning bicycles last, asking for $500,000.  The letter certainly doesn't articulate a transportation vision or a clear set of priorities. The new DOT director missed a chance to set her mark.

As a former State Senator the Mayor understands well that actual expenditures from the State's Transportation Trust Fund are often made through good relationships, ad- hoc decisions and behind closed doors. They often supersede public vision or long range investment plans. However, having become the victim of random and dictatorial decision making, Baltimore's public policy shouldn't  support the replacement of a transparent transportation planning process with a chummy relationship to the Secretary or Governor, no matter how helpful those relations may be.

Jed Weeks, policy director of the non-profit Bikemore, wrote about the letter affair on Facebook:

Prior letters have asked for prioritization of federally funded transit projects, including TIGER grants, the Green Line, and the Red Line. The letter might be a political technicality, but the fact they couldn't even regurgitate existing project priorities onto letterhead is a clear sign of indifference and lack of vision.

Importantly, the annual priority letter provides an important opportunity to rally all relevant forces, including the public, behind a consensus on transportation goals. The MDOT website explains:

Priority letters should be coordinated amongst all local jurisdictions with planning, public works and economic staff. Priority letters should be endorsed by the Commissioners/Council (and/or County Executive as appropriate), as well as a majority of the local legislative delegation.

Baltimore City plays a special role in the State because it is the only jurisdiction in which all State Highways are owned and maintained locally, with the State paying for upkeep through a special formula. Of course, it still is also the largest city and an economic powerhouse.

Ms. Pourciau says that she is working  on a vision and a inventory of existing assets, both laudable goals, except that one would expect a transportation leader to come into the office with a clear understanding of priorities and ideas. The Director's page on the City DOT website doesn't use that space to outline anything aspirational:

The Department of Transportation works hard to improve the quality of life for both residents and visitors of our great city.  Our primary goal is to have the city’s transportation infrastructure in a state of good repair by striving to provide a transportation network that ensures the mobility of people and enhances economic prosperity. (Director's page)

The Mayor is said to have given her new appointment a wide berth. That may change now after the embarrassing failure to write the letter. The mayor spoke Tuesday on WYPR's Midday in a very informed and convincing manner about her views and leadership. She brought in Bloomberg Philanthropy to give her access to best practices of city governance all across America; during her transition she had invited Janette Sadik Khan to speak about her bold decisions as transportation commissioner in New York. These are promising steps. However actual steps in transportation during her time are far from those aspirations. The Mayor needs to see that transportation isn't just a specialty she can simply delegate to an expert. Transportation holds the key to the future of the City in so many interconnected fields that bold leadership beyond a "good state of repair" is needed.

The Baltimore region Opportunity Collaborative published in 2015 a report that outlined the importance of transportation for equity, job access and economic development. When over 250 cities and regions competed for Amazon's headquarters it became blatantly obvious how central transportation is for being competitive. Everybody knows that Baltimore doesn't fare well in that category. It is high time to fix that.

Complete Streets, active transportation, many modes of mobility, autonomous vehicles, demand-based transit, robust fixed-transit, restrictive demand based parking pricing and policies are the elements that will determine a successful transportation future. Every single decision made today must be oriented on these elements and have equity as a metric for progress, every day and without fail. There is no time to move sideways, backwards or not at all.

Hopefully the failure of writing this transportation priority letter becomes the moment when urgency arrives at BC-DOT.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
updated for language: An earlier version erroneously named the Policy Director of Bikemore

Baltimore fails to submit letter asking for state transportation funding