City dwellers who complain about losing parking spaces these days are urged to give up their car-centric ways and get in step with efforts to make urban areas denser, more transit oriented and more pedestrian friendly.

In Baltimore that reformist way of thinking prevailed last year when a bill to repeal parking minimums, pushed by City Councilman Ryan Dorsey and strongly supported by Mayor Brandon Scott, was enacted.

At a hearing in City Hall last week, the reformers’ dream residents showed up:

Proudly describing their neighborhood’s bike, bus and nearby light rail options, more than a half dozen people came to oppose the large number of parking spaces sought for a grocery store, liquor store and retail shops, including a potential restaurant, on North Avenue between the Park Avenue intersection and I-83 (Jones Falls Expressway) interchange.

The residents said they were happy to be getting a supermarket, but not okay with giving politically plugged-in developer, P. David Bramble, the 65 off-street parking spaces he wants – far beyond the 36-spot maximum permitted under the newly tightened city code.

More spaces, they argued, would mean more cars at an already hazardous spot on a major thoroughfare traversed by schoolchildren and others.

“This grocery store does not even have a door on North Avenue! Instead, it offers a car-centric, suburban-style shopping center,” said Christina Schoppert-Devereaux, who was representing the Historic Mount Royal Terrace Association residents whose homes directly abut the project.

“I’m quite sure 90% of the neighborhoods in Reservoir Hill, the students from MICA, the people of Bolton Hill will be walking to this grocery store,” resident Rolando Maxwell said, warning that granting the variance would lead to more accidents.

Residents denounced MCB’s demand that a portion of the bus lane on North Avenue be converted to six on-street parking spaces.

Speakers implored the City Council’s Land Use and Transportation Committee to reject Bramble’s request for parking and his demand that a portion of the curb-side bus lane on North Avenue be given up and converted to six on-street parking spaces in front of the grocery store.

“If those six spots can go away, we can save lives,” Reservoir Hill Association President Keondra Prier said.

This transit-rich part of West North Avenue, she argued, may not yet be the ideal configuration to serve as a gateway connecting the Westside’s Black communities to the rest of the city, but forcing buses out into the vehicle lanes will make matters worse.

Granting the applicant’s request, Prier declared. would be “downright dangerous and unfair and unequal.”

Bikemore Executive Director Jed Weeks offered some statistics that buttressed her argument.

“This block alone, if altered, will add over 1,100 hours of travel time each day to CityLink Gold [bus] riders in trade for a few parking spots,” he testified.

Also before the the committee was this sharply critical statement by the city’s own Department of Transportation:

“Proposed on-street parking was rejected over concerns that it would diminish the effectiveness of dedicated bus lanes and create new conflicts between MTA buses and parked cars, potentially contributing to crashes” (our emphasis).

While not taking a formal position on Bill 26-0150, the agency submitted the statement after a site visit with state officials last November.

High-Profile Developer

Given the pushback from residents, advocates and even DOT, plus the committee’s demonstrated inclination to rein in parking, it would seem easy for members to reject these variance requests, except for one twist:

Bramble, co-founder and managing partner of MCB Real Estate, is considered Mayor Scott’s favorite developer.

MCB and its boss came into the public spotlight in 2023 with its purchase out of receivership of the city’s tourist waterfront buildings, Harborplace.

A generous contributor to the mayor’s 2024 reelection campaign, Bramble secured Scott’s support for his company’s plan to build private apartments on harborside land enshrined in the City Charter as a public park. (MCB then mounted a successful $240,000 drive to persuade voters to approve the charter change it needed.)

At 600 West North Avenue, where a childcare center started by his father, Rev. Peter Bramble, once stood, the developer wants to construct a grocery store and separate multi-tenant retail building.

It’s part of MCB’s larger Reservoir Square redevelopment project that includes 120 townhouses and a $16 million city-funded office building to serve as a headquarters for the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development (MOED).

(A 2024 contract approved by Scott and the Board of Estimates allowed Bramble to construct the building without putting up any of his own money and committed Baltimore to spending at least $63 million to lease the office building until April 2055.)

At Thursday’s committee hearing, MCB and its partner, Blank Slate, were represented by Drew E. Tildon of RMG, formerly Rosenberg Martin and Greenberg. (Bramble wanted to personally attend the hearing, but had a prior commitment, she said.)

Tildon warned that if the committee doesn’t approve the requested number of parking spaces, the supermarket chain lined up to lease space there – Streets Market – will pull out of the deal.

“If this variance is not granted, there will not be a grocery store in the Reservoir Square development,” Tildon asserted, after reminding the committee of West Baltimore’s well-known plight as a food desert.

“A grocery store is desperately needed in this area,” she said.

Schoppert-Devereaux called Tildon’s assertion “a false choice.”

“Baltimore can do both,” she said. “We can put a grocery store in West Baltimore and we can meet our transit equity goals.”

DOT Flip-Flops

Aside from back-and-forth on the grocery store’s needs, a lingering question on Thursday was how MCB’s proposal could move forward when the city’s own transportation experts stated clearly it would “promote crashes”?

It turns out, one day before the hearing, DOT posted a new statement on the bill on the City Council’s legislation website, saying it now “has no concerns and requests a favorable report.”

At the hearing, it fell to DOT policy analyst Luciano Diaz to explain this reversal.

“I’d like to apologize for any conclusion raised by our previous bill report,” Diaz began.

“Through continued coordination with partner agencies and the developer, these concerns were successfully addressed”  – Policy Analyst Luciano Diaz.

“Through continued coordination with partner agencies and the developer, these concerns were successfully addressed,” he said, stating that the Site Plan Review Committee (which initially opposed the MCB request) and DOT now support it.

“Just to clarify, I concur with the bill sponsor,” he said.

The reversal baffled Bikemore’s Weeks, who testified that slicing out a chunk of dedicated bus lane violates the city’s “Complete Streets” ordinance and risks the clawback of  federal funds the city received to help create it.

“The overnight change to ‘no concerns’ and the favorable bill report presents no new data, no new analysis or no justification,” he said.

“The overnight change to ‘no concerns’ . . . presents no new data, no new analysis or no justification”  – Bikemore’s Jed Weeks.

Councilman Paris Gray asked Diaz how DOT could endorse a change that could create dangerous conflicts with buses in contradiction with the city’s goal of making streets safer for bikes and pedestrians, as well as motorists?

“Upon further examination, we realized that the conflicts were not as much of a concern,” he answered.

Diaz was also confronted with the fact that, as the residents pointed out, no comprehensive traffic study or traffic mitigation study was conducted in connection with the MCB request.

“Why was that not completed?” 10th District Councilwoman Phylicia Porter demanded.

Diaz said he would have to check with traffic engineers and agency leadership and then get back to her.

A Dilemma for Dorsey

The famously parking-averse Dorsey, who did not call for a vote on the bill, has been the target of special attention from some residents.

Reservoir Hill Association member Carson Ward quoted back to him at length his own words from a September hearing, including: “There is no such thing as free parking.”

Dorsey was describing a theoretical grocery store whose customers had to pay higher prices thanks to the extra cost of building, maintaining and paying taxes for an oversized parking lot. Now before him was a request to expand parking capacity in a neighborhood with a high concentration of people who don’t own a car or drive.

Dorsey seemed amused by it, but Ward was quoting him to make a sharp point.

“If you make an exception for this developer, then you are not only being inconsistent,” she warned. “You are selectively applying your logic to impose what you consider a public burden on a historically marginalized, majority Black community.”

Attorney Tildon said the opponents had no data to prove that MCB’s plan would endanger the community and noted that the developer’s plan included crosswalks, tree planting and curb extensions, or “bumpouts,” that she explained would create “a pedestrian refuge area.”

Notorious Crash Zone

The additional parking, Tildon said, was needed to take advantage of the unique pros-and-cons of the site from MCB’s point of view.

“It is at the intersection just west of the I-83 interchange. The reality is that will encourage more car traffic to be coming here,” she said, describing the area as having “limited walkability.”

Despite the intense focus on the requested six parking spaces, only the off-street spaces were at issue as part of the conditional-use request before the committee, Tildon reminded the audience.

As for how the matter of the six parking spaces is to be handled, the area’s representative, Councilman James Torrence, described the issue at one point as “an administrative process.”

Residents pointed to their own experience of hazardous traffic condition, in addition to DOT data showing North Avenue as the the city’s second worst location for traffic crashes.

“I have been a witness to more than 10 crashes in the last two years,” Micayla Eve Riven, of Reservoir Hill, wrote in a letter to the Council.

“Presently, at the complex high-volume intersection of North Avenue, Mount Royal Terrace, I-83 southbound ramp, and Mount Royal, pedestrians must navigate obstructed sightlines, incorrectly timed signals, and highway-speed vehicles racing to beat red lights to cross seven lanes of traffic, “Brandy Savarese wrote.

“The intersection of North Avenue and Park Street – along Reservoir Hill’s safe route to school and a bicycle route – is the only intersection to require two crossing guards to keep vulnerable road users safe,” Savarese continued.

“I have been a witness to more than 10 crashes in the last two years” – resident Micayla Eve Riven.

Others had a bitter response to MCB citing insufficient density in the area to explain the need for more parking and car customers.

“Residents were promised a project that would bring meaningful resources to the community, including retail, commercial space, apartments, structured parking and improved walkability,” Reservoir Hill’s John Charlton wrote. “Instead, MCB backed away from major pieces of that vision and shifted toward more row houses.”

The company has said initial plans for apartment construction at Reservoir Square had to be dropped because rising incomes in the area meant it wouldn’t qualify for subsidies.

“MCB has already broken trust with the surrounding neighborhoods,” Charlton continued. “Now they are asking the City to weaken another core promise: a safer, more walkable North Avenue.”