Several fundamental questions went unanswered at last night’s standing-room-only City Council committee hearing on legislation to give broad new rights over Baltimore’s Harborplace to a private developer.

Was any thought given to requiring P. David Bramble to sign a community benefits agreement in return, Councilwoman Odette Ramos wanted to know.

“This is the only time [in the process when] we could have any leverage,” Ramos pointed out, as the Council was poised to, among other things, completely lift height restrictions, paving the way for his plan to build two tall apartment towers on City Charter-designated public park land.

“It’s a little premature for that,” Bramble’s lobbyist, Caroline Hecker, chided.

When pressed, Hecker said, “It really would be inappropriate to tie it to a zoning bill. It’s not something that can be part of what’s before the Council.”

It was the same when Councilman Ryan Dorsey said he’d heard the approximately 900 apartment units Bramble plans were going to be expensive and asked if there’s been any calculation about what that would mean for an affordable housing set-aside?

“Not yet,” Hecker told Dorsey. “It’s too early. We do not have that.”

There was a similar response from the Scott administration when Dorsey asked about plans the developer has described to reconfigure Pratt and Light streets, whose fast-flowing traffic inhibits pedestrian access to the waterfront.

Has a specific plan been developed by the city? A study? Money allocated?

“No,” “no” and “no,” said Corren Johnson, director of the Department of Transportation. “There are a lot of moving parts.”

Yet when time came for the Council’s Economic and Community Development Committee to vote on the three bills, there was no suggestion that, given the missing information, a decision was premature.

The legislation was approved almost unanimously, receiving “yes” votes from:

Committee Chair Sharon Green Middleton, John Bullock, Mark Conway, Antonio Glover, Odette Ramos and Robert Stokes.

Dorsey voted “yes” on bills 23-444 and 23-446, but “no” on 23-448, describing himself as “pro-development” and fine with high-rise multi-family buildings, but disturbed by the lack of commitment to road improvements.

“To take the guardrails off the private development that can happen on Harborplace before the city endeavors to take away the known barriers to Harborplace’s success is absolutely putting the cart before the horse,” he asserted.

Skyscrapers a Flashpoint

Over the course of nearly five hours, members of the public provided passionate testimony, the majority of it opposed to the bills.

The redevelopment plan for Harborplace proposed by Bramble’s MCB Real Estate has been controversial since it was revealed last October by Mayor Brandon Scott in the company of Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Comptroller Brooke Lierman and other top Democrats.

Demolishing the 44-year-old Harborplace retail pavilions and replacing them with waterside apartment buildings (one 25 stories tall, the other 32 stories) has been the flashpoint.

Standing in the way are height and mass restrictions and an urban renewal plan approved by the City Council in 1967 that dedicated the area “perpetually” as open space “so as to be forever available for public use.”

Along with bills to clear away those impediments, an amendment to the City Charter also would have to be approved by voters in November (Bill 23-444) for the Bramble redevelopment plan to move forward.

Middleton said the three bills advanced by the committee last night will come before the full Council for a preliminary vote at its next meeting.

As he has frequently, Bramble spoke of the project as civic-minded local company’s gesture to rescue a Baltimore treasure:

“This isn’t a project that MCB has to do. This is a project that we want to do,” he said again last night.

Forsaking a Trust?

Multiple opponents who testified, however, said only the developer would benefit, while citizens would lose an irreplaceable public space.

Appearing aghast at the legislation, the opponents accusing city leaders of forsaking the heart of Baltimore’s waterfront, the only public park space designated as such in the charter.

Scolding the committee, attorney John C. Murphy said the language in the 1967 urban renewal plan was “powerful” and “not a casual afterthought.”

That means “you are trustees and obligated to preserve this park ‘for this and future generations.’”

Given the strictly enforced, two-minute time limit to speak, some made only brief remarks in addition to written comments they submitted.

The Inner Harbor “has the feeling of a four-sided living room that is connected ultimately to the Atlantic Ocean. . . It may be the most valuable piece of waterfront real estate in the USA,” wrote Ted Rouse, the son of James Rouse, who envisioned Harborplace with Mayor William Donald Schaefer in the late 1970s.

The tradition of councilmanic courtesy, “which maintains that Council people do whatever [bill sponsor] Eric Costello wants because
the bills pertain to a project in his district, does not apply in this situation,” Rouse continued in his statement.

He and many of other critics acknowledged that the aging tourist pavilions on the site should be changed, but only if an overhaul brings diverse crowds and vitality back to the waterfront.

“The number one group of people who are leaving our city are middle-class African Americans,” said Visionary Art Museum founder Rebecca Hoffberger. “I don’t see anything in this plan that is aimed at elevating the life of middle-class people of any background, let alone the poor.”

Resident Michael Hairston Jr. said he was “extremely disappointed” with the plan for similar reasons.

“More apartments will do nothing to enhance the lives of average Baltimoreans,” he said. “There are dozens of liquor stores and abandoned buildings that could be torn down for apartments.”

Federal Hill resident Michael Brassert pointed to the success of New York’s High Line, a linear greenway formed from a former elevated railroad spur.

“No high-rise apartment buildings. Just an open space to walk a little closer to the sky,” Brassert said. “I urge you, don’t sell our soul.”

City resident Abbott Bolte made the same point when she rose to speak.

“You guys have a chance to be original. You have a chance to to be talked about the way Rouse is talked about, and you’re giving it away so quickly,” Bolte said.

“I’m not an architect, but I do know this is not going to make people say, ‘Hey, let’s go to Baltimore. They have those new apartment buildings!’”

“This is not going to make people say, ‘Let’s go to Baltimore, they have those new apartment buildings!’”  – Abbott Bolte.

A longtime local architect did address the committee: David Benn, part of the Inner Harbor Coalition, a grassroots group that calls for keeping the height restrictions in place and “more careful planning that keeps the water and skyline views for everyone.”

“That’s only a proposal until the economy changes, the market changes, the backers change,” Benn said, displaying one of MCB’s mock-ups of the project. “It would be a miracle if it actually happened.”

“This is what you’re voting on today,” he said, pointing to another image: yellow columns of development air rights extending up into infinity. “Unlimited height.”

“Are you willing today to make something like Dallas on the Chesapeake?”

A Blank Check?

Supporters of MCB’s plans said they welcome a major makeover of the tourist waterfront, including Matriarch Coffee owner Michael Saunders.

“We have been waiting a very, very long time for Harborplace to be restored.” said Saunders, who opened his first storefront operation after MCB acquired Harborplace.

“They gave us space at the Pratt Street Pavilion at a a discounted rate,” he explained.

Developer Doug Schmidt said moving forward with MCB’s proposed overhaul is necessary “to show the world Baltimore is a city where the government encourages people to create, invest and get things done.”

Schmidt’s company, Workshop Development, is partnering with Bramble’s MCB Real Estate on an apartment project in Charles Village.

Others, however, questioned local leaders’ fervent embrace of the plan, questioning, among other things, the assumption it will get public financing.

MCB’s Hecker sought to distance the project from initial promises that state and federal funding would be used for park and promenade enhancements.

“Improvements are going to be basically made regardless of this project. We expect the federal government is going to pay for them”  – MCB’s attorney  Caroline Hecker.

“There’s been a number of – and $300 or $400 million in public funds sort of – floated out in the world,” she said. “There is going to be some public investment we expect is going to be made.”

But she also said “we know there are fundamental improvements that are going to be basically made regardless of this project. We expect that the federal government is going to pay for those improvements.”

Given this and other major uncertainties, Barbara Samuels, retired ACLU of Maryland lawyer, argued that the Council should hold off on approval of the bills.

“It’s too early to be giving the developer a blank check.”

Former Councilman Jody Landers said he was “confounded” by Hecker’s assurances that MCB is not asking for city funds.

“As if removing the height restriction, removing the parking prohibition and a no-bid lease to build private residences on park land is not an expenditure of public capital?” Landers thundered.

“Let’s do an analysis of why the current Harborplace failed before we give away this public open space,” he urged, to applause from the crowd.