Q&A: Outer Harbor Initiative
By most measures, the neighborhoods around Baltimore's Inner Harbor are doing well. So I was interested to hear of the Outer Harbor Initiative, which calls for attention to be focused on neighborhoods just outside that ring of affluence and activity.
Chesapeake Habitat for Humanity in Baltimore, a nonprofit that builds affordable housing, developed the concept and approached Councilman William Cole for help. I asked Mike Mitchell, chief executive of Chesapeake Habitat, to explain the idea.
Q. What is the Outer Harbor Initiative?
Thirty years ago, the city redeveloped the Inner Harbor, and in the time since that redevelopment, neighborhoods around the Inner Harbor have succeeded in redeveloping. They've attracted homeowners, renters, and those neighborhoods have increased their tax base for the city, and they also have contributed to stability throughout the city.
In Habitat's work, we have seen that the neighborhoods just outside these Inner Harbor neighborhoods have faced blight and a lack of new investment. Part of the reason for this is that investors and speculators have not been willing to turn around their properties for rental or homeownership. And the great irony is these in quotes "investors" have prevented development from happening.
This has caused two negative impacts for Baltimore. First, it's meant the continuation of blight and vacancy, which has meant lost tax base for the city, increased crime and fewer resources for city services and schools, but it has also meant that thousands of Baltimore City residents who could be homeowners in these properties have not had the opportunity to be homeowners and live in these homes.
The Outer Harbor Initiative seeks to resolve this by continuing development beyond the Inner Harbor neighborhoods to this outer ring, these Outer Harbor neighborhoods. The idea is to present a strategy that entails four tools.
[Number one], code enforcement. Number two, … investment and development, finding investors who are willing to invest once the code enforcement department has done a good job of getting speculators to leave or invest in their houses. …
The third is then, after you get the developers and investors willing to invest in the neighborhood, you need a neighborhood association that has the resources and the know-how to market itself. And finally, you need a partnership with the police to ensure that public safety continues to get better and better.
Q. What neighborhoods are we talking about?
I can name some, but I want to emphasize that they are "such as neighborhoods" … And those would be Pigtown--or Washington Village/Pigtown--McElderry Park, Brooklyn-Curtis Bay, and the South Baltimore neighborhoods of Mount Winans/Lakeland and Westport.
Q. Why are you interested in this?
The main reason is to stabilize and revitalize communities--to make sure that Habitat homeowners and other residents have a safe and decent place to live. The second is that the city could benefit from the strategy of neighborhood redevelopment that moves beyond only doing large projects like EBDI or Uplands.
Q. Why focus on the "Outer Harbor" neighborhoods?
These are neighborhoods--not all of them, but for the most part--that Habitat is working in. And because Habitat is working as a market agent to turn around markets that don't exist. … In many of these neighborhoods, there is effectively no housing market. So we are acting as a catalyst to ensure development in the neighborhood.
Q. No market? No one's buying?
Well, there isn't reinvestment occurring in many of these neighborhoods at a level that would ensure growing stability.
Q. What do you want the city to do?
We want the city to do each of the four things as a neighborhood redevelopment strategy. So we want to see enhanced code enforcement in neighborhoods where reinvestment and development are present or can be present. We want to see banks come alongside the city and say, "If the code enforcement department works on this area, we banks and lenders will put up money to lend to developers."
We want to see mechanisms for neighborhood associations to be able to market their neighborhoods. And we want to see a strategy that entails working with police … Push the drug trade out until the neighborhood has stabilized. …
Another thing we hope comes out of the discussion is new financing mechanisms that the city can draw from to support transformation. For instance, the city uses TIFs [tax increment financing] right now for big developments, like the project in Westport. Is there some version of a TIF that can be used in a neighborhood to help finance [smaller-scale] redevelopment?
Q. How much of this do you see as public money vs. private?
I think the public money can only do part of it. It's going to take private money. But public money can help leverage private money. And the perfect example of that is the Inner Harbor. Thirty years ago, there was enormous public money that went into redeveloping the Inner Harbor, and I don't think anyone can argue that that investment didn't lead to a lot of private investment. You just have to look around the harbor and the neighborhoods around the harbor to see the impact that that had.
Q. Can you paint a picture of what this work might look like in a neighborhood?
I'll give you a specific example. In Pigtown, an outcome might be [that] the city says, this 10-block area has 60 vacants, and we're going to assign one code enforcement attorney and one nuisance attorney to prosecute; … we will seek from a private lender a commitment to loan within this 10-block geographic area. … And we will offer to support marketing of the neighborhood to the community association.
We have seen and been thrilled at the code enforcement department's work. They have done a very great job. But we believe in a code enforcement strategy paired with an investment strategy.
Q. How do you see Habitat's involvement in this?
We envision ourselves being part of the conversation and … one of the investing entities that helps to transform neighborhoods. So in the example I cited of a 10-square-block area, if there are, say, 60 vacant houses, maybe Habitat can do 25 percent or 20 percent of those homes, making sure that affordability is a part of all this.
Q. What should people do if they want to find out more or offer feedback?
The main thing they can do is get on the website.
We hope that folks think about affordable housing as part of this discussion--that there is a paradox in Baltimore City, with 30,000 vacant houses and at least 30,000 families that could own and live in these homes and be paying taxes to the city. … We as a community must respond to this paradox.
Q. On a related note, what has the housing slump meant for Habitat's affordable housing efforts?
It's certainly bad for neighborhoods to have more and more foreclosed houses, and … it's going to make it more challenging in the future respective to donations. Those are the main things.
Q. No silver lining? No influx of cheaper homes for Habitat to rehab?
Not at all. Because at the price points of what we buy, it really doesn't make that big of a difference. … We haven't seen huge drops in property values: $35, $40,000--it hasn't changed.
