Housing

The ambitious undertaking promises to replace a vestige of the city’s aging public housing infrastructure with over 2,000 new mixed-income housing units.

Many agents, brokers say they battle low expectations, stereotypes and discriminatory practices in an industry in which they are disproportionately underrepresented and often earn less than their white counterparts.

The announcement came with two weeks left for homeowners to pay outstanding taxes, but housing advocates say only changes to state and local law can ensure the system is more just.

Baltimore needs to establish a Land Bank Authority to bring more investment to underserved neighborhoods, says Krystle Okafor, director of policy and planning at SHARE Baltimore.

If the bill is signed into law, Maryland will become the seventh state in the country to pass similar legislation since the beginning of March.

Mayor Brandon Scott should remove Baltimore homeowner properties from the tax sale auction, as he did last year, Allison Harris, director of the Home Preservation Project at the Pro Bono Resource Center of Maryland, says. Campuses of historically Black colleges in Maryland are among those urgently in need of modernization, Paul Clary, co-founder of MD Energy Advisors, says; the work of the state Attorney General's Office in the Baltimore Archdiocese sex abuse investigation merits praise, a city resident says.

City officials voiced concern about the financial impact of ending tax sales after learning that Baltimore faced a $79 million increase in education spending — an unanticipated cost that Mayor Brandon Scott likened to a ”gut punch.”

Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley and DaJuan Gay sparred at a recent council meeting over the alderman’s state of mind, and whether the mayor was out of line.

Segregation remains a reality in Baltimore County schools, a parent of a county school student says; lack of an effective inclusionary housing policy reinforces a system that subsidizes segregation in Baltimore, a policy analyst says; families can take steps to ease the transition of people with developmental disabilities into adulthood, a services coordinator says.

Maryland lawmakers quietly added $2 million for emergency rental assistance in the final hours of budget negotiations on Friday — a fraction of what housing advocates have said will be necessary to avoid a mounting eviction crisis in the state.

Housing redevelopment in Baltimore’s distressed neighborhoods would pay for itself with economic benefits such as tax revenues and construction jobs, says Paul C. Brophy, a principal with Brophy & Reilly LLC who specializes in neighborhood revitalization.

Just 10 companies have acquired the lion’s share of the properties foreclosed on through tax sale and most of the profits, a Banner analysis found.

The proposed tax credit would be the city's first for affordable housing.

The Moore-Miller transition team gathered input from more than 5,000 Marylanders to identify the state’s biggest challenges, develop solutions and help set priorities, says Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, who chaired the transition team.

Baltimore County is searching for abandoned homes, but finding them may be more complicated than you would think.

Replacing gas appliances with electric ones make sense, but it can be costly. Maryland lawmakers are exploring ways to expand rebates for electrification.

Historic investment of at least $7.5 billion, to be spent over time, is needed to solve Baltimore’s crisis of vacant and abandoned houses, Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development (BUILD) says. The organization of clergy, neighborhood and educational leaders says the large-scale redevelopment needed for some city neighborhoods would require that level of investment.

MV Realty’s practice of enticing homeowners to sign away the exclusive right to list their homes for sale for 40 years in exchange for small cash offers drew the attention of lawmakers and regulators.

The bill would require inspections of “priority buildings” with 20 units or more with a documented history of poor conditions twice per year until conditions improve.

When police officers demonstrate a lack of empathetic humanity, incidents such as the killing of Tyre Nichols occur, a reader says. A physician says Marylanders will benefit from full implementation of the state’s family and medical leave law. Any plan for Lutherville-Timonium redevelopment must rely on the area’s history and facts about issues such as zoning, the Lutherville Community Association’s president says.