Critics of a ballot question needed for a waterfront apartment project to be built at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor Park were ecstatic today when a judge invalidated it, saying that the question violates the Maryland Constitution and that its wording is unclear.

Question F will still appear on the ballot for the November 5 General Election, which is already being printed, but results from it will not be certified, Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Cathleen Vitale ruled.

After the case was heard in Anne Arundel County, where ballot challenges are to be filed, Vitale issued her opinion from the bench.

The lead petitioner, Anthony Ambridge, said he was “very happy” with the outcome.

“It’s so refreshing to see that the system works – that there’s a balance of power, and when the legislators and the city take a position and it’s wrong, the courts can overrule it,” Ambridge, a former Baltimore city councilman, said.

Ambridge said his main criticism of the question was that it was confusingly written and gave voters no clear idea of the specific changes to the City Charter and what they would mean for the city’s celebrated tourist waterfront.

The charter change was part of a package of legislation approved by the City Council in March to pave the way for a sweeping proposal that would end height restrictions and alter Inner Harbor parklands.

The plan, strongly backed by Mayor Brandon Scott, would allow developer P. David Bramble to raze the twin, low-rise tourist pavilions at Harborplace and replace them with two high-rise apartment towers in the heart of the city’s waterfront since the 1970s.

The legislation would remove the current 50-foot height restriction and also allow Bramble’s MCB Real Estate to construct an office building and a large retail center shaped like a sail near the corner of Pratt and Light streets. One of the bills was a charter change proposal required to allow residential development and parking at the harbor in an area enshrined in the charter as a park.

None of that was apparent from Question F’s wording, according to attorney Thiru Vignarajah, who argued the case on behalf of Ambridge and other petitioners, including noted local architect Leon Bridges and Ted Rouse, son of the original Harborplace developer James Rouse.

“They’ve written a question that nobody can understand, that’s designed to mislead and confuse voters and obscure what they were doing because they knew the voters wouldn’t like it,” Vignarajah said, speaking today to The Brew.

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“They were basically delivering on a silver platter public park land to private developers,” Vignarajah continued. “They were literally cutting the heart of the Inner Harbor Park out and giving it to a private developer who made a lot of donations to the city’s politicians.”

Aside from the ballot question’s unclear language, its very premise was improper because it dealt with zoning and planning, Judge Vitale also said.

Pushing Back

It was unclear today whether the Maryland State Board of Elections will appeal the case to the Maryland Supreme Court.

Mayor Brandon Scott’s office, asked for a comment on the ruling, has not responded.

A spokeswoman for MCB also declined to comment.

Posting on Twitter, Councilman Eric Costello denounced Vitale’s decision as “an outrage and an affront to the sovereignty of Baltimore City.”

The 11th District councilman, who sponsored the Harborplace legislation, decried what he called “voter suppression,” noting that Vitale is a former Republican legislator.

Ambridge said he’s not sure what will happen next, but is gratified by the judge’s pushback against City Hall.

“In their effort to slide this through, the mayor pressured all his agencies and the Council,” he said. “And then it came back to bite them.”