Baltimore County officials are preparing to auction a long-troubled 10-acre Dundalk site to developers who must agree to cooperate with neighbors throughout the construction process.
County Executive Jim Smith manned an excavator Thursday morning in a ceremonial demolition of the remaining apartment building in Dundalk?s Yorkway complex. The county has acquired all 56 buildings and relocated 183 families from the high-crime corridor since March 2006.
“The community is no longer afraid to come out of the homes,” said Councilman John Olszewski Sr., a Dundalk Democrat. “Neighbors are neighbors again. Children can come out and play.”
The county spent more than $21 million in acquisitions, demolition, relocation and environmental studies.
Olszewski said the county should be able to recoup some of the costs but will also save in reduced crime calls and social service needs.
Developers bidding on the site must agree to follow the county?s “renaissance” program, which involves a community-oriented planning process known as a charette.
The process proved an obstacle for the redevelopment of blighted apartments in Essex?s Kingsley Park, and the county was forced to give the 18-acre site and a $2 million subsidy to the only development company to submit a proposal.
But officials said federal housing regulations required a percentage of replacement homes to target low-income residents. Those rules will not apply in Yorkway.
An auction for the site was scheduled for Wednesday but was canceled due to weather, said Angela Heffner, a county spokeswoman. A new date has not yet been determined, she said.
Police responded to 3,800 calls at the 56-building Yorkway complex in 2005. When Smith first announced the project, neighbor Stacey Kelley called it a “godsend.”
“Anything would be better than this,” Kelley said.
