Baltimore Brew

30/10/2025

Behind the plans for relocating the Sisson Street trash drop-off center: Two politically powerful players.

Seawall Development and MCB Real Estate own possible alternative sites, but you’d never know it listening to Baltimore city officials Monday night.

+++At Monday’s three-hour public meeting, administration officials failed to disclose these connections, even when asked directly about them.

“Do you have information on who is the current owner of the 400 West North Avenue site?” Task Force member Kevin Macartney asked Public Works Director Matthew Garbark.

“I’d have to get back to you on that. I’m not entirely sure. I don’t recall,” Garbark said.+++

https://tinyurl.com/5n8pncjc

28/10/2025

City Council seeks crackdown on smoke and v**e shops modeled on recent “dollar store” legislation.

Lately, 13 smoke shops have popped up in a 3-block area of his East Baltimore district, says Councilman Antonio Glover, some selling fentanyl-laced ma*****na products.

“We’re seeing that kids can enter too many of these smoke shops. I’m getting personal calls and inboxes on social media in reference to a kid’s been hospitalized by a substance from one of those shops,” Glover said at last night's meeting.

One new bill restricts where these stores can operate, another regulates their bright window lights. And Antonio Glover's resolution calls for an informational hearing.

Glover said the hearing would help educate the Council and the public and offer “the perfect opportunity to stop this cancer now before it gets worse because all we’re doing is creating the next generation of addicts.” tinyurl.com/2yhd955b

28/10/2025

Defending ending parking requirements for new apartments, Councilman Jermaine Jones said legacy residents deserve better kinds of protections.

"If that’s the only thing we have to protect them, then shame on us.”

Pushing back, Councilwoman Phylicia Porter said they've been "the only lever" for the Black and Brown communities that have been oversaturated w/ substance abuse and mental health clinics in Baltimore.

(He voted in favor of the bill to end the requirement, she voted against it.) https://tinyurl.com/5fk2yaxk

28/10/2025

W/ little change from last week, Council approves Mayor Brandon M. Scott' s zoning bills tonight.

Councilman Torrence said Black citizens wishes were being ignored and people waved “Democracy over Developers” signs, but the rule-relaxing, density-promoting bills passed as expected.

Audience members waved “Democracy over Developers” and “Neighborhoods Matter” signs. But as expected, the mayor’s rule-relaxing, density-promoting legislation passed.

27/10/2025

‪
There’s a better way to craft bills that will change the rules for Baltimore housing.

It starts with fairness and honesty – elements missing from the dialogue around zoning and housing legislation now being pushed through the City Council [OP-ED]

It starts with fairness and honesty – elements missing from the zoning and housing legislation now being pushed through the City Council. [OP-ED]

27/10/2025

A look at the last-minute grassroots persuasion campaign mounted ahead of tonight's critical vote on controversial zoning bills backed by Mayor Brandon M. Scott and Councilman Ryan Dorsey.

In this photo, Maraizu Onyenaka points to the asparagus in her backyard in East Baltimore’s Montebello neighborhood. Under a pending bill, the properties on either side of her could build extensions that would shadow her yard.

It's just one of the reasons Onyenako (president of the CHM Coldstream Homestead Montebello neighborhood organization) and other community leaders are opposing the legislative package backed by Mayor Scott and Councilman Ryan Dorsey.

Debate has been intense over whether the bills, designed to bring more density and multi-family housing to Baltimore neighborhoods, will wreck them or revive them....
https://tinyurl.com/4vyj4a9c

26/10/2025

Lobbying intensifies ahead of vote on Mayor Brandon M. Scott's controversial Baltimore zoning legislation.

Opponents of two key bills – narrowly approved in a preliminary vote by the City Council – seek to flip votes at tomorrow’s meeting.

Opponents of two key bills in the mayor’s housing package – narrowly approved in a preliminary vote by the City Council – seek to flip votes at tomorrow’s meeting.

24/10/2025

A master class in how to turn Baltimore County’s zoning into a political free-for-all.

The culture of soft corruption has long existed in Baltimore County - it’s getting worse, not better. [OP-ED]

The culture of soft corruption has long existed in the county. It’s getting worse, not better. [OP-ED]

21/10/2025

Councilman James Torrence blasts Mayor Brandon M. Scott's zoning bills “on behalf of my residents in Sandtown-Winchester.”

Calling them an instrument of redlining and gentrification, his scorching remarks reflected widespread grassroots Black opposition, as the full council advances two of the measures.
https://tinyurl.com/4b445a3m https://tinyurl.com/4b445a3m

By a close margin, the City Council last night advanced sweeping changes supporters said would help Baltimore grow and opponents said would drive Black residents out.

21/10/2025

Sisson Street trash station task force names Councilwoman Odette Ramos as chair.

Also announced today: Calvin Young, point man for the unpopular Sisson Street relocation plan, will “shift” from mayor’s chief of staff to an interim deputy mayor.

Also announced today: Calvin Young, point man for the unpopular Sisson Street relocation plan, will “shift” from mayor’s chief of staff to an interim deputy mayor.

20/10/2025

The false promise of the sweeping zoning bill package pitched by Mayor Brandon M. Scott as a path to affordable housing.

Visionary reform? Or just a way to help developers cut costs? There's a reason Black Baltimore residents are leery.

Scott and the Council members supporting him are asking the right question . . . but offering a disastrous wrong answer. [OP-ED]

Councilman Ryan Dorsey and Mayor Brandon Scott are instituting a sweeping overhaul of Baltimore zoning rules that will hurt residents of this “city of neighborhoods.” [OP-ED]

17/10/2025

At a hearing, residents said Mayor Scott's zoning deregulation bills will hurt their neighborhoods and some council members pushed back as well.

A zoning change in one of them, Councilman Mark Parker said, “results in a potential increase in multi-unit properties far beyond what a community could possibly sustain, especially communities which are already the most dense in the entire city.”

But Parker's amendments were rejected by the committee.

Two of the bills in the administration package got committee approval . . . and are set to go before the council Monday for a vote.

A measure ending the requirement for apartment projects to include parking and another allowing rowhouses to be built closer to the property line are coming before the Council for a vote Monday.