A City Council vote to rezone the Harford Road corridor for apartment conversions and new construction was postponed last night by Councilman Ryan Dorsey, opening up a new phase of his showdown with some community leaders.

Asked if he lacked the votes for final passage of his Harford Road Overlay District bill that the council preliminarily approved two weeks ago, Dorsey wouldn’t say.

“We had a lot of absences tonight. I’d like it to get a vote when everybody is there,” he told The Brew after the surprise development, declining further comment.

The postponement of a vote until the council’s December 2 meeting came after more than 230 residents, many of them attached to community associations, signed a petition asking the Council to reject the plan to rezone residential property along Harford Road to permit multi-family dwellings and apartment buildings up to six stories high.

“It makes no sense to sacrifice stable, integrated neighborhoods to help with a current commercial vacancy problem. It’s like using a shotgun to kill a mosquito,” said Jody Landers, a former councilman who led a contingent of community activists to the council chambers last night.

The apartment overlay would impact residences on side streets along a three-mile stretch of Harford Road. Dorsey argues that the corridor currently doesn’t have enough people to support local businesses, leading to disinvestment and commercial vacancies.

Landers and other critics say Dorsey’s bill would allow the conversion of single-family houses into multiple apartments not subject to zoning hearings and public input, and adjust off-street parking requirements to encourage investors to eventually buy up blocks of houses and replace them with apartments.

“I know what’s happening in the market,” says Landers, retired executive vice president of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors. “There’s intense competition among investors to buy up land, sight unseen, for apartment development.”

A Question of Density . . .

Dorsey doesn’t disagree that density is his goal.

The bill (24-0544) is designed to increase population in Arcadia, Beverly Hills, Lauraville, Moravia-Walther, Waltherson, Hamilton, Hamilton Hills and Westfield to attract and sustain more businesses, enhance walkability and encourage housing diversity.

A fervent proponent of bicycling and the legislative father of Baltimore’s Complete Streets program, Dorsey believes that density, tied to reduced auto traffic and improved public transit, holds the key to repopulating cities.

And he sees Harford Road, a bastion of free-standing, modestly priced bungalows in a rowhouse city, as the proving ground for his ideas.

Independent and at times prickly, Dorsey prides himself on being the most progressive member of the City Council and a champion of affordable housing.

He introduced the overlay bill last June after he beat back a challenge in the May Democratic Party primary for a third term as representative of the council’s Third District.

Newcomer Margo Bruner-Settles ran against Dorsey’s advocacy for bike lanes and traffic-calming measures with a campaign that, ironically enough, attracted developer dollars.

The Harford Road overlay bill was a reboot of his earlier attempt to enact the Abundant Housing Act, legislation that would end single-family zoning in many areas of Baltimore and allow homes to be converted to multi-family dwellings.

Dorsey argued then – as he does now – that wealthier, predominately white neighborhoods don’t allow multi-unit homes, effectively shutting out low-income people and perpetuating racial segregation.

Landers says he’s got it all wrong. Over the decades that Landers has lived in the same house not far from Harford Road, he says, the area has gone from 90% white to about 65% Black and Brown. What’s kept up the area’s housing stock is homeownership.

“These are communities where families want to live. Where you can get houses for under $300,000 and sometimes for under $200,000. The only people who will get wealthy by changing this positive [dynamic] are the investors,” Landers said.

According to opponents of the overlay bill, which include the Lauraville Community Review Panel (CRP), Lauraville Business Association and the Moravia-Walther Improvement Association, Dorsey has been unwilling to address their concerns, holding just one community meeting on the bill two days before the July 4th holiday when few people could attend.

The bill also has its supporters, including the owners of the Silver Queen Cafe in Hamilton and a resident of Hamilton Hills, Jamal Turner, who wrote shortly after the July 2 community meeting:

By attracting new residents and visitors to the area, we can create a more robust customer base that will help sustain and grow our local enterprises. Strengthening our small businesses is not only beneficial for the local economy but also plays a vital role in preserving the unique character and charm of our community.

At a September bill hearing before the Council’s Ways and Means Committee, some community members complained that those on Zoom weren’t able to testify.

Several letter writers who did get through to the City Council said lawmakers should wait before approving wholesale rezoning until the impact of a large apartment building, now under construction on the 4500 block of Harford Road, becomes clear.

Others wondered why the bill excludes Mayfield where the councilman lives. (Dorsey has said that’s because the Mayfield portion of Harford Road doesn’t have commercial buildings.)

. . . And Politics

In response to the complaints, Committee Chair Eric Costello, who wrote a $6,000 campaign check to Bruner-Settles last April, promised to hold another hearing.

But nothing came of it before Dorsey, in a daring move, petitioned the bill out of committee and won preliminary passage before the full Council on November 4.

Landers said he was shocked when he heard that news from City Council President Nick Mosby, who along with Costello was one of four councilmembers who voted against the Dorsey bill.

Landers and others quickly organized the petition drive that asked the Council to reject the bill, which seemed headed to a final vote last night when Dorsey called for a postponement.

The reason was clear from the head count – with two of his supporters (Sharon Green Middleton and Phylicia Porter) absent and a third councilwoman (Danielle McCray) waffling, Dorsey risked falling short of the eight votes needed to move the bill to Mayor Brandon Scott’s desk.

Mosby accepted Dorsey’s motion, pointedly saying a delay was granted “to give you additional time to talk to the community.”

If Dorsey cannot reach a deal with the community – and/or cannot find eight votes on December 2 – the overlay bill will automatically die because the 73rd term of the City Council ends.

A new council convenes on December 5, and Dorsey would need to start legislatively from scratch with a new bill.

-To contact a reporter: reuttermark@yahoo.com