A petition drive aimed at protecting 20 Baltimore parks from certain types of private development — and blocking one specific project at the Inner Harbor — was 88 signatures short of the 10,000 needed to get the issue on the November ballot, one of the lead organizers said at a community meeting on Tuesday night.
July 29 was the deadline for a volunteer group to submit 10,000 signatures required by the city’s Board of Elections to get its initiative on the ballot. The question would have asked voters to amend the City Charter to include language that prevents certain types of development on designated public parkland around the city, including Inner Harbor Park.
The amendment would have prohibited: “industrial activities, residential development, private office space; buildings exceeding 100 feet, and any other private use inconsistent with the parks’ public nature, except that these restrictions do not apply to structures already in place as of January 1, 2024.”
If approved, this change to the charter would have prevented a local company, MCB Real Estate, from moving ahead with a $500 million plan to replace the two Harborplace pavilions at Pratt and Light streets with a mixed-use development, because Harborplace occupies part of the area designated in the City Charter as Inner Harbor Park and MCB’s plan calls for 900 apartments in two towers over 100 feet tall and a separate office building.
MCB Real Estate already controls 3.2 acres of city-owned land occupied by the Harborplace pavilions through a long-term ground lease with the city, and the company unveiled its Inner Harbor redevelopment plan last October. Before it can move ahead with construction, it needs voters to pass a separate ballot question that would expand the amount of land it controls to 4.5 acres. The Baltimore City Council has passed legislation that authorized that question to be put on the November ballot.
Protect Our Parks
The group that was collecting signatures to prevent private development of city parkland, called Protect Our Parks, was led by attorney and former mayoral candidate Thiru Vignarajah. It started collecting signatures in mid-June and had nearly 200 volunteers working up to the July 29 deadline. Its website is www.protectbaltimoreparks.org. It was working with but separate from, another citizens’ group that opposes MCB’s redevelopment plan, the Inner Harbor Coalition.
“I’m of course disappointed to share with you that we did not reach the 10,000-signature mark that we aspired to reach in a span of six weeks,” Vignarajah said during a meeting of the Federal Hill Neighborhood Association (FHNA) on Tuesday, in his first public remarks about the petition drive since the July 29 deadline passed.
“I can tell you, and we have checked high and low, that no ballot committee has secured as many signatures in as short a period of time as this incredible group of volunteers did. A volunteer army of nearly 200 folks in a span of six weeks secured 9,912 validated signatures. That wasn’t fun for me to report yesterday, either…It was heart-breaking to read that number from our team.”
Vignarajah said his group will turn its attention to advocating that city residents vote No on the ballot question that would give MCB control of more land at Pratt and Light streets. He also vowed that volunteers will work to get voters to approve a charter amendment to protect 20 city parks on the ballot in two years – and they’ll start collecting signatures earlier next time.
“I wanted to make sure you knew that our fight will continue, that we are going to continue to organize over the next few months,” he said. “If we could get 9,912 validated signatures in six weeks, I’m pledging to you we’re going to get 30,000 signatures when we put this on the November ballot in two years.”
For the next few months, he said, the volunteers who collected 9,912 signatures this summer “are going to turn their attention to protecting the park that is under an acute threat, the Inner Harbor Park, and will do everything in its power to encourage people to vote against the charter amendment” that MCB needs to move ahead with its project.
“The reality is that this is going to be a longer war, and we do need to prepare for that,” he said. The 200 “ground organizers” who collected signatures and the 9,912 city voters who signed the Protect Our Parks petition are going to be “the nucleus of the resistance.”
Matter of time
Held at Light Street Presbyterian Church, the hour-long meeting was billed as an “informative discussion over the proposed Harborplace redevelopment,” with representatives from both MCB Real Estate and the Inner Harbor Coalition invited to participate. FHNA president Zac Blanchard had encouraged association members to review a digital presentation from MCB and submit questions ahead of time. About 35 people attended in person and another 47 participated virtually.
Vignarajah wasn’t originally on the meeting agenda but was invited to talk about the status of his petition drive, given its timeliness.
Calling the charter amendment that would give MCB control over more Inner Harbor parkland “a terrible, terrible blow to the soul of the city,” Vignarajah said he believes the charter amendment proposed by Protect Our Parks will eventually get on the city ballot and win approval.
Given the number of people who signed the petition over the last six weeks, “it will happen,” he said. “It feels like an inevitable, only-a-matter-of-time issue.”
At the start of the meeting, Blanchard told community members that MCB representatives would not be participating but sent a statement for him to read.
“MCB has been willing from Day One to meet with any community organization, hear their feedback, and answer any questions about a reimagined Harborplace,” Blanchard read from MCB’s statement. “We were hoping to do the same for FHNA this evening. However, since the opposition’s failure to get on the ballot yesterday, they are trying to turn this meeting into a circus and detract from the actual neighborhood residents who want to learn more,” Blanchard read from MCB’s statement.
“We remain ready to meet with the residents of the FHNA when we can have an uninterrupted discussion with the community,” MCB’s statement continued. “We know that a lot of residents were planning to come out tonight to hear from us. We’ll be sending information out for a virtual information session in the coming days to make sure people have a chance to hear from us and get their questions answered.”
