Baltimore is being repopulated one house at a time.
The flight of residents from the city is slowing down and appears to be reversing due to lower crime, aggressive city redevelopment and the efforts of industrious community activists.
From 1990 to 2000, the city lost 11.5 percent of its population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But from 2000 to 2005, Baltimore’s population of about 636,000 only decreased 2.4 percent. In some cases, the repopulation of some city neighborhoods wasn?t counted by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The Baltimore Department of Planning has been carefully monitoring the city?s repopulation and has successfully challenged Census Bureau numbers for 2001, 2003 and 2004, said Otis Rolley III, the city?s director of planning.
The city?s numbers prevailed by tallying building permits and dwellings and then calculating the number of people in an average household using the latest census data.
The task of turning around the flight of residents from the city is a chore shared by all agencies, particularly Baltimore?s Development Corp.
Jay Brodie, president of the Development Corp., believes the city?s focus on renovating neighborhoods, its location and the hot real estate market are reasons for fewer people leaving. He also believes the city is experiencing a second boom since the 1980 completion of the Inner Harbor that is attracting more residents.
“Because we are close to the port and D.C., we are well-positioned to repopulate Baltimore,” Brodie said. The city?s long-term goal ? to attract an additional 200,000 residents ? is not impossible, he added.
Brodie siad this will happen as younger, educated people move to the city to fill high-paying jobs being created by such projects as the $2.5 million National Institutes of Health Biomedical Research Center under construction on the Johns Hopkins Bayview campus.
“These younger people don?t have the baggage some others have about living in Baltimore,” Brodie said.
ONE NEIGHBORHOOD AT A TIME
While some might think such talk overly optimistic, communities throughout Baltimore are experiencing a renaissance brought about by a pioneering spirit, city policies and hard work.
Ed Rutkowski, executive director of the Patterson Park Community Development Corp., is a prime example. He formed the nonprofit corporation, which began to buy and renovate vacant houses. Since then, Rutkowski?s organization has bought and sold 175 renovated row houses and leased 165 renovated rental properties.
POLICY JUMP-START
While the success of the neighborhood?s revitalization program is a reality, a change in city policy about four years ago helped to jump-start the renewal, Rutkowski said.
“This is when the city lifted income restrictions on the money it made available to attract people to the neighborhood,” he said.
These are funds given to a prospective homeowner in the form of an interest-free second mortgage, which they never have to pay back.
Before the policy change, such money was earmarked only for those earning less than 80 percent of median income, he said.
The change immediately increased the number of those interested in migrating to the city, Rutkowski said.
As a result, the neighborhood continues to grow, and new residents are buying houses without the incentives.
NEW DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
The desire to transform neighborhoods from blocks of boarded-up houses into flourishing communities sparked the strategy of removing income restrictions from the program, said Baltimore Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano.
“Our development strategy is to build on our strengths with limited resources,” he said.
At the same time, Graziano said the city is committed to developing affordable housing.
Mayor Martin O?Malley credits much of Baltimore’s second boom to his policies and the hard work of city residents.
“We are on an upward climb instead of a downward spiral,” O?Malley said at a news conference last week.
At the news conference, O?Malley told The Examiner that the city had $59 million set aside in a trust fund to help renovate properties throughout the city. “We added $6.2 million this year,” he said.
O?Malley is also asking the City Council to earmark $5 million from the city’s surplus to pay for demolition for the New East Baltimore Partnership project. When completed, this would include up to 1,500 new and rehabilitated houses and new green space. Up to 8,000 new jobs and new retail uses are projected in East Baltimore, building on existing retail opportunities along Monument Street and Broadway. O?Malley said that the city is on its way to “repopulation” and that it will benefit from upcoming military base realignments.
SECOND BOOM
Charlie Duff, executive director of the Midtown Development Corp., also said the city is in the midst of a second boom.
“The first boom was largely about tourism and did a small amount of neighborhood revitalization,” he said. “This boom is three times bigger.”
While Duff agrees that the city?s policy of removing income limits from some of its homebuying programs sparked interest in the neighborhoods of Mount Vernon, Charles North and Bolton Hill, he says lower city crime rates are the main catalyst.
Duff credits O?Malley for making safer streets, but he also said the influx of new residents keep them safe. “The number and weight [of the neighborhoods] have hit critical mass,” Duff said. “It’s [gotten] big enough to be safe.”
Aside from its proximity to mass transit and art, these neighborhoods are attracting new residents because of rising construction costs, said Duff. “There’s a big hike in construction material. It takes less material to renovate.”
Once a city neighborhood develops into a community, people take charge of their surroundings, he said. Instead of letting a vacant building on the corner of Charles and Read streets be demolished and turned into a parking lot, 17 neighbors raised $600,000 and purchased and renovated it, Duff said. “It?s been converted into six apartments and a store.”
