In April, on a mostly vacant block in East Baltimore, a small crowd gathered to celebrate 21 badly blighted rowhomes being converted into a mix of for-sale housing and off-street parking lots.

More than a month later, the shovels have yet to hit the ground on Mura Steet, the compact block in Johnston Square where a handful of homeowners and renters await their long-promised next chapter. ReBUILD Metro, the developer leading the neighborhood’s transformation, is still waiting for its permits.

ReBUILD Metro has helped breathe new life into the east side real estate market, remaking, selling and renting attractive new homes and apartments in Broadway East, Oliver and Johnston Square.

However, even the high-profile company, which has been issued hundreds of permits for its homes, is having trouble navigating Baltimore’s new permitting system, which relaunched in February after years of calls for change from a weary business community.

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City officials said the revamped system would simplify and even accelerate the arduous process of getting a permit, which is needed to build, renovate and rent out homes to ensure safety and quality control. In a city committed to rehabilitating more than 3,000 blocks of empty and abandoned properties, the stakes for a functional system have reached an all-time high.

So far, the promised overhaul has backfired.

About half as many permits were issued in the first half of 2025 as in the same period last year, a Baltimore Banner analysis of permit records available on Open Baltimore found. The 9,941 permits issued for construction projects, demolition and land use changes as of June 3 are the fewest since the city began publishing permit records on its public records database in 2015.

In January, Baltimore granted more than 3,000 new permits. In February, the first month under the new system, the city issued just 688.

Baltimore City has approved less than half as many building permits as this time last year

Approvals have slowed dramatically since a new system took effect in February.

Source: Open Baltimore, Housing and Building Permits 2019-Present • Greg Morton/The Baltimore Banner