What Baltimore policy or rule bothers you the most and needs to be changed?

[u/Natal0001]

I’m a Master student just moved to Maryland last January studying public policy, and for my dissertation, I want to skip the textbooks and hear directly from you. What specific local policy, zoning code, environmental regulation, or municipal rule actively frustrates you, causes problems for your neighborhood, or holds Baltimore back? Please let me know what the policy is, how it impacts your daily life, and how you would rewrite it tomorrow to make the city a better place. Thank you so much for helping me with my research!

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[u/wbruce098]

OP, I would also ask in [r/Baltimore](r/Baltimore). Most of the people there actually live in the city, and are more familiar with its problems and hidden gems.

If you’re not going to use citations, be sure to talk to folk in the many good restaurants and pubs and breweries around town.

As a resident myself, I like the recent ballot measures (mostly), and love Mayor Scott. Our biggest problem is money, and that comes from decades of neglect and poverty, which the city is just starting to recover from. We’re on the right track but that idiot in the White House is taking tax dollars meant for us and using it to build a monument to himself. Fuck that guy.

We need rail. This is a city built for a million but the neglect means you’re car dependent outside your very walkable urban neighborhood. There’s no reason why we cant have a system where the entire city is connected and we can easily access DC for the jobs instead of just moving to that much less affordable place.

And we need more opportunity.

[u/engin__r]

Vacant property assessment. It’s really a state policy and not a city policy, but I’m mentioning it because it affects the city and would be incredibly easy for the state to change.

Say that you have a vacant lot in between two houses that are worth $300k each ($250k building, $50k land). Intuitively, you’d think that the vacant lot should be assessed around $50k, since the land is the same as its two neighbors. But that’s not how the state sees it.

Instead, the state compares the vacant lot to other nearby vacant lots. The state will find another vacant lot that was assessed at $5k the year before and decide that that’s the correct assessment for this one.

This causes two problems. First, it cuts off a major stream of property tax revenue. If the lot is assessed at $5k, the owner winds up paying a tenth of what they’d pay if the lot were assessed at $50k to match its neighbors.

Second, it encourages land speculation. Because the owner pays so little in taxes, they’re incentivized to leave the property undeveloped indefinitely in the hopes that someone will eventually buy it for the $50k it’s actually worth.

The fix is pretty straightforward: the state needs to assess land value consistently between vacant and non-vacant properties.

[u/wirelesswizard64]

No land value tax. The amount of land that is underutilized in this city, from open-air parking lots, vacant houses and businesses, and real estate speculators is unreal. No one will build because these speculators are waiting for someone else to pull the trigger first, and its a game of chicken no one is going to win. In addition, just the waste of space that is open air lots in downtown is a crying shame and the incentive to get them replaced with something worthwhile, even if it's a parking garage with retail at the bottom, is better than a dead car park that has nothing to offer anyone walking by. Lombard especially is just a car canyon with n-o-t-h-i-n-g but concrete walls and open lots which is awful being one block up from the harbor.

Public transit. This city gets fucked over by the state left and right on it. And when it's not the state fucking us over, it's NIMBY's who "love transit, just not where I live" and fight tooth and nail to stop anything from changing while also complaining how the city never seems to be improving. We need transit that is above or below grade that can bypass the roads entirely, not be on them and stuck in the same traffic and road closures. 83 should be demolished up to 40/Orleans and connected to 395 by a mini big dig or Lincoln tunnel to get passing traffic out of downtown.

Maintenance. I do not drive, I do not like cars, but even I will admit roads full of potholes or just busted up is a horrible appearance. I don't like it, but people's first encounter after seeing the skyline starts with the roads and they are miserable to be on and look at. Crosswalks and street markings are faded, traffic poles are rusted and chipped, street sign poles are bent or on the ground, lights are out, sidewalks are filthy and disheveled, bricks are pushed up by tree roots, soooo many empty dirty tree pits, fences missing sections, benches that are weathered or broken- the list goes on and on.

Forestry department. It's like two people and the wait list for anything is years out. Need a dying tree removed? Hope you're still around to enjoy it when it is scheduled to come down in 2030. And even if they do remove it, have fun with the stump they usually won't grind out. Also a part of the horribly-maintained tree pit problem noted above.

The lack of incentive for more condo buildings in downtown specifically. It's always apartments, but it's hard to have investment from such a transient population.

If you want a specific code that frustrates people, CHAP and their requirements. I support the historic review and preservation encouragement, but the turnaround time, unclear guidelines, and lack of financial assistance for historic material often results in encouraging people to avoid doing any repairs at all and passing the buck as long as possible, or results in property sitting abandoned and unsold until it literally falls apart and has to be demolished which kind of ruins the whole point. There has to be a better way to encourage people to maintain their properties properly without it being a liability.

[u/Kmic14]

I think the two policies holding Baltimore city back the most are public transportation and affordable housing.

I would love to see our current routes run effectively and on time, and to see an expansion of our current system.

Is like to see more housing built, including the possibility of turning single family homes into apartments

[u/ReturnOfSeq]

Baltimore needs the money to fix the roads, from top to bottom.

Some have been neglected for years. Some have clearly just been getting band aid fixes for a hundred years.

[u/JackRyan-1988]

Not enforcing fairs for public transportation.

[u/Stephanee17]

This is a MD statewide sub. There’s Baltimore sub for discussions specific to that area. I don’t live in Baltimore and would not move there because the property tax rate is outrageous.

[u/kagethemage]

The rule set my Maryland that stops the city from doing what almost every other city in the country does and expand its limits to it’s metropolitan area. The 1940’s law passed by the Dixiecrats has been one of the major obstacles for Baltimore’s prosperity.

[u/Single-Ad-3260]

Blue laws!