Baltimore Initiative to Develop Thousands of Vacant Homes
Mike Colagrossi
Baltimore’s latest initiative is tackling its vacant housing problem by converting empty homes into affordable living spaces, aiming to reduce blight and expand housing options.
- $3 billion has been set aside by state and city funds, aimed to repurpose 13,000 vacant homes over the next 15 years.
- Maryland Governor Wes Moore expects the first 5,000 units to transfer to “homeownership or other positive outcomes” in the next five years.
On October 1st, Moore issued an executive order establishing the “Reinvest Baltimore Program.” Part of the funding comes from an industrial development authority and tax increment financing (TIF) bonds. A new state law earlier this year gave Maryland jurisdictions the ability to create vacancy taxes to stimulate development and discourage investors from hanging onto vacant lots or homes.
Urban Investment: Legislation passed in April added an additional $50 million per year for the initiative, while state housing will fund an additional $27 million per year.
“The TIF structure would allow the city to borrow millions of dollars to help fund the acquisition, remediation and sale of vacant properties. The debt would be paid off with new tax revenue expected to be generated by the improved properties.” This proposal, unlike previous TIF initiatives, would target vacant properties across noncontiguous areas, focusing on parts of the city with high vacancy rates.
The executive order transforms Project CORE, originally launched by former Gov. Larry Hogan to demolish vacant properties, into the newly named Baltimore Vacants Reinvestment Initiative.
Recently, pastors and community organizers spoke before Mayor Brandon Scott about the negative impact of vacant homes on neighborhoods across the city.
Brent Brown, pastor of Greater Harvest in West Baltimore’s Franklin Square, noted that the city acquires nearly 30 to 40 vacant properties each month.“We’re going to have to increase that speed a little more, but guess what? I believe we can,” Brown said.
The city needs to more than double its current acquisition rate to meet Governor Moore’s goal of 5,000 homes in five years. “The work needs to be happening now and at a break-neck, back-breaking speed, and I am so encouraged by what we’ve already accomplished together,” Mayor Scott said.
Baltimore’s Vacancy City Housing Data
City housing data shows that a little over 1,000 registered vacant buildings receive use-and-occupancy permits each year, while around that many buildings are also added to the city’s vacant registry each year too. Hundreds of vacant buildings are simply demolished each year as well according to the data.
Speaking to the Baltimore Sun, Lisa Hodges-Hiken, executive director of the Westport Community Economic Development Coordination, noted that in her South Baltimore neighborhood, a single landlord owns over 70 houses and continues to purchase more.
Alchemist City Local View: Unlike houses that are considered vacant because they’re listed for rent, vacant houses that are hoarded by investors negatively affect the housing supply and by that measure housing affordability.
“The industrial jobs left, and people could no longer walk to work, and so like with other neighborhoods in Baltimore that were centered around factories the people left, and the volume of vacant homes grew. Now, over a third of homes in the commercial quarter are vacant,” Hodges-Hiken said. “We’re going to need partners in the public sector to hold these absentee property owners accountable to pressure them to sell instead of dragging our community down.”
