Baltimore has many things to be thankful for this year. Development once restricted to the Inner Harbor extends way beyond the water and for the first time in decades the city?s population increased, according to the most recent Census figures.
But there is very little to give thanks for this holiday season in West Baltimore. Rows and rows of boarded homes line once grand avenues, decrepit remnants of neighborhoods vibrant before desegregation and the 1968 riots spurred Black and White flight. But the neighborhood does not have to stay this way.
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Solutions exist to remake it. And the benefits would extend well beyond West Baltimore to every corner of the city. Former Mayor William Donald Schaefer transformed Federal Hill and Otterbein in the 1970s with his $1-a-home program. Resurrecting that program in tandem with selectively halving property taxes ? twice as high as surrounding jurisdictions ? in West Baltimore and in other neighborhoods bypassed by the remodeling boom of recent years would transform blighted areas. Aside from turning zero revenue neighborhoods into places where the city could start to collect property taxes, the program would also give families moving to Maryland through the military?s base restructuring program a real reason to choose Baltimore City.
The draft BRAC Action Plan is a great vehicle for making the proposals reality. It calls for the state to help local jurisdictions build streets and parks and other infrastructure projects in areas in need of redevelopment to attract those moving to Maryland because of BRAC. Why not redouble efforts by also cutting taxes and offloading often dangerous property to those who will remodel it in those “BRAC Zones”?
West Baltimore has a long way to go to gentrify, but it?s MARC stop gives it easy access to Washington and means it has a key anchor for future development already in place.
The city has a grand opportunity to help a once grand neighborhood thrive again ? and boost the money flowing to its treasury. Members of the City Council and Mayor Sheila Dixon must act now to make these proposals reality before military families moving to the state head to the suburbs.
