Baltimore, Md. Mayor Brandon M. Scott, BUILD and the Greater Baltimore Committee (GBC) announced a landmark agreement to aggressively combat Baltimore City’s vacant and abandoned properties over the next 15 years.
Article continues below
>
The agreement calls for strategic public investment to redevelop a minimum of 37,500 properties, with a clear plan to address as many as 45,000 properties.
The Scott administration pledged city investment of $300 million over 15 years to spark the project. That money – and other funding to be sought from the state of Maryland and private sector – will be used to generate as much as $3 billion to finance the redevelopment work over the course of effort.
The agreement commits to meeting key community development standards and values, including a commitment to leverage at least $2 in direct private investment for every $1 of public money spent.
“This historic partnership and the plan we’re putting forward is designed to fully address Baltimore’s vacant housing crisis for the first time in our city’s history,†said Mayor Brandon M. Scott.
“The era of piecemeal work and backwards-looking strategies is over.
"With this partnership and the plan we’ve designed together, Baltimore City finally has a roadmap for solving this crisis once and for all, utilizing both innovative funding streams and tried-and-true development strategies. For me, this work is personal.
"Vacant properties and the challenges they pose to neighborhoods have been a constant backdrop for my entire life. We now know the path forward, and with the City’s partnership with BUILD and GBC, we will use every tool at our disposal to get it done.â€
Baltimore has roughly 13,000 vacant and abandoned houses and structures, more than 20,000 vacant lots, and tens of thousands more homes that are affected because they are next to vacant and abandoned properties.
Vacant and abandoned homes directly impact the safety, health, and wealth of families. The same neighborhoods most impacted by the vacancy crisis have also been historically impacted by racially discriminatory housing policies and redlining practices in Baltimore.
The new plan seeks to leverage the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development’s (DHCD) existing slate of tools to expand ongoing redevelopment work, but will also introduce two new funding sources.
Under the new plan, the City of Baltimore will implement two novel strategies to facilitate the $300 million commitment: non-contiguous tax increment financing bonds (TIF) and reinstating the city’s Industrial Development Authority, which has not been utilized in more than 40 years.
Notably, the TIFs, which have historically been primarily utilized in Baltimore to generate development of waterfront neighborhoods and large-scale downtown commercial projects, will now to be applied to the redevelopment of vacant properties in historically disinvested-in neighborhoods.
Additionally, the partnership will seek to obtain additional state housing funds, work to obtain a new public revenue stream – such as a share of state sales tax receipts – and secure new private and philanthropic investments.
The new plan sets key goals, including: “community-led development without displacement, building equity, and addressing the wealth gap through homeownership†– which will help create thriving mixed-income neighborhoods and housing that is safe and affordable.
The plan also calls for a “whole-block†approach that invests in an entire neighborhood, with a focus on building on existing neighborhood assets.
In order to ensure the longevity and consistency for this long-term project over the course of 15 years, the parties will seek to utilize an existing “special purpose entity,†such as the Maryland Stadium Authority or Maryland Economic Development Corp. (MEDCO), to help facilitate some of the funding streams and ensure the agreement is maintained. ■