Baltimore is not a city in decline--in fact, we believe that it is on the precipice of a major revival. Its people, institutions, and culture have much to offer, but the same fears around change, gentrification, and in-fill development that have, over the past twenty years, made many American cities unaffordable have started to rear their head in Charm City.. We don't need to make the same mistakes. As the city begins to re-grow, it should consciously and unabashedly promote policies that allow for a development process that is predictable, transparent, and easy to navigate; that ensure new housing is not waylaid by a vocal minority of current residents; and that empowers neighborhoods to become denser and more walkable.
Ours is an inclusive vision of welcoming all new and potential residents. Anyone who wants to should be able to afford to live in Baltimore City.
We strongly support building new housing. As demand for living in Baltimore grows, the only way to keep housing costs affordable and accessible to all is through continually ensuring that new (or newly renovated) housing units keep pace with the influx of new residents.
The conversion of single-family row homes into multi-family units is an unreserved good. Baltimore should celebrate any time a property owner invests in renovating a vacant house and makes it available for multiple new families.
New multifamily housing--both through the rehabilitation of vacant or derelict single family row homes, as well through new apartment complexes--is critical for ensuring an affordable, accessible, and vibrant city. New tenants are just as worthy of living here as long-time homeowners.
We should build more housing in every neighborhood — especially high-income and high-job neighborhoods. Across-the-board policies that allow for increased development help reduce development pressure on gentrifying "edge" neighborhoods.
High density housing goes with high-quality public transit and walkability. However, housing can be built before or in anticipation of the construction of future transit improvements.
The people most hurt by preventing additional housing construction are those with the least means. Well-intentioned residents who slow or stop new housing in the name of affordability are leading contributors to long-term displacement.
We are unapologetic urbanists who believe in the virtues of cities. More people living in close proximity to each other can improve their lives and the lives of those far beyond city limits.
Density is sustainability: it reduces urban sprawl, reduces automobile use, reduces water use, uses energy more efficiently, and creates a smaller carbon footprint.
Density is accessibility: it encourages walking and biking, makes transit more efficient, reduces social isolation, and increases residents’ access to diverse cultural products and to each other.
Density is opportunity: it increases access to jobs, supports diverse businesses, promotes innovation, increases the tax-base and enables people to be more productive.
People should be free to choose to live in places that are urban, compact, and walkable, low-density and car-centric, or rural. Not everyone wants to live in a dense city, and that's okay! However, current policies unnaturally constrain the supply of urban housing, which often pushes people to more affordable but less dynamic suburbs.
Baltimore was literally built to hold 50% more people. Densification helps create the virtuous cycles necessary to rehabilitate the housing stock and infrastructure that was once intended to accommodate one millions Baltimoreans,
It is not the role of the local government to maximize wealth for individual property owners, but rather to create valuable communities that can be accessed and shared equally by current and future community members.
Housing is infrastructure that allows for people to live where they most prefer to be. The primary community benefit of new housing is the housing itself.
Housing doesn't just serve today's Baltimoreans; it allows future residents from across the country and the world to choose to live in Baltimore.
Filtering exists. Today’s new "luxury" housing becomes tomorrow’s inexpensive housing, as long as scarcity isn’t induced by restricting the creation of new housing.
Baltimore has the physical space for more housing without displacing existing residents.
New, market rate construction helps protect lower income residents. In a growing economy with scarce new housing, higher income newcomers compete for older housing stock and outbid lower-income residents. Adding supply at all levels helps protect existing non-wealthy residents from being priced out of their apartments and homes.
Effective ways to protect and preserve existing affordable housing units include community land trusts, resident owned and controlled cooperatives, maintaining strong tenant protections, improving access to credit in minority communities, expanding federal funding for subsidized housing, providing lawyers for at-risk tenants and homeowners, and building more housing.
We support subsidized housing, but believe functional housing markets can effectively provide affordable and accessible housing to most Americans. When advocating for the creation of Below Market Rate (BMR) housing, we should seek to maximize the number of BMR housing units as opposed to the percentage of BMR units in new projects.
The continual churn of new development and businesses is essential to maintain a city's vibrancy and ensure its resilience. We do not seek to demonize opponents of change--we just don't believe their opinions should drive policy.
We affirm that neighbors who live near new developments are not unreasonable for being concerned about change. Construction can be noisy and invasive. Moreover, homes are most peoples' primary asset; it's rational to be wary of projects that might impact its value. Moreover, there are real trade-offs with density including congestion and increased demand for city services.
Similarly, there are lots of normal psychological biases drive all types of people to oppose nearby new development-- loss aversion and status quo bias mean people tend to prefer what they currently have verses what they could have; impact bias results in people overestimating the long-term consequences to their happiness of negative shocks.
However, we believe the responsibility of the city government is to structure its decision-making so that it makes choices that are in the best interest of the city as a whole, as well as prospective and future residents, and to not subrogate the collective wellbeing in favor of narrow interests of hyper-localized parties who might personally perceive harm in a development.
We strongly oppose lending credence to any anti-housing arguments or calls for project-specific analysis based on subjective or ex post facto mitigatable issues, such as: neighborhood character, building context, or appearance; shadow or loss-of-sunlight studies; historic preservation or architectural review; traffic flow or parking studies; stormwater, runoff, or erosion analysis; objections alleging absentee landlordism or disruptive tenants; crime, noise, or other public health studies. Genuine environmental and public safety issues are already resolved through construction and building permitting; genuine development impacts, such as potential school crowding or congestion, are best resolve after they actually materialize.
We believe in long-term planning. Once a citywide or neighborhood plan is made, the process for building should be streamlined, well-defined, and predictable. It should not impose significant delays on or add significant costs to a project, nor should individual property owners or neighborhood associations have the power to hijack it.
By-Right building: Baltimore should seek to expand the types of projects that can occur "By-Right," meaning that a wider variety of building types, uses, heights, and densities can be accommodated by the normal city permitting process without requiring public hearing.
Simplify the zoning code and up-zone the city: Having over 40 zoning overlays makes for colorful maps, but it is complicated to navigate and severely restricts homebuilders and businesses from locating where they believe the best value of their project or business lies. Outside of preventing pollution and other obvious public health hazards, the city should have severely limited oversight over where homes, shops, restaurants, and offices choose to locate themselves.
Reduce the influence of neighborhood associations and public hearings on land use decisions: Neighborhood associations are often well-intentioned, but the types of people who show up to public hearings are not representative of the residents of their community. It's natural to be concerned with change to a neighborhood, but that doesn't mean those fears should be impacting individualized land use decisions. For similar reasons, Baltimore should end its Urban Renewal Plan overlay zoning.
Curtail the influence of historic and architectural preservation committees (CHAP): There is a value in ensuring a city can preserve a select few buildings that are widely recognized as having preeminent architectural, historical, or aesthetic value. Making entire neighborhoods historic, however, makes them expensive and exclusive. Cities are not meant to be frozen in amber, and historic or architectural preservation design restrictions have become far too powerful of a tool for blocking development and discouraging re-habilitation.
Do not subsidize private projects in the name of economic development: The city's responsibility is to create a level playing field where individuals and businesses can decide for themselves what they value and where they desire to be. Businesses and developers should succeed or fail on their own merits--not because they've received preferential tax treatment from the City.
Complete streets: A dense city can only succeed if it is also walkable and bike-able. All transportation and transit decision-making should be built around ensuring residents can safely, efficiently, and enjoyably travel throughout the city without needing to own a car.
The Baltimore Region has never stopped growing--but now it's time for Baltimore to re-claim its place as a thriving and growing urban center. To do so while maintaining housing affordability requires organizing today.
We must organize our communities, make our case in the media, write to legislators, support projects at hearings, support pro-housing candidates, and vote for more housing. Join us.
h/t SF YIMBY