For supporters of a bill that makes big changes to Baltimore’s zoning code – increasing maximum lot coverage and reducing minimum yard requirements in certain residential districts – the benefits are abundantly clear.

It’s about loosening oppressive restrictions on what can be built where, thereby creating denser neighborhoods and more affordable housing.

“The bill would support development by creating more buildable space, allowing for more flexible use of residential lots and help increase the overall housing supply for the families we serve,” said Emily Hovermale, director of external affairs at the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership.

“This bill is a chance for more access to safe, stable and affordable homes in communities where they can thrive,” continued Hovermale, speaking last month before the Planning Commission about Bill 25-0064.

Opponents, meanwhile, warn of the unintended consequences of the legislation, which is scheduled to come before a City Council committee today.

The bill could drastically change Baltimore’s quintessential rowhouse neighborhoods (known in the city code as R-8 districts) by:

• eliminating the minimum requirement for a 20-foot rear yard, allowing buildings to “by right” extend all the way to the alley,

• raising the current height limit on a mid-block rowhouse from 35 feet to 45 feet,

• allowing, through increased density, each lot to accommodate two apartments instead of just a single-family home.

Such changes might be good for new residential projects, but they could irreparably harm Baltimore’s established neighborhoods, argues Remington zoning activist Joan Floyd.

“Our existing rowhouse blocks were developed according to plans that incorporated features designed for living with sunlight and air and privacy and space and good neighbor relations,” Floyd said, at the August 28 Planning Commission hearing.

“These are not old-fashioned, obsolete concepts,” she continued. “They’re modern concepts. They are concepts we need to retain for a healthy city.”

A video that Floyd prepared to show the impact of the bill on a typical Baltimore rowhouse block.

Floyd, who called for the bill to be withdrawn and reworked, was not the only one to express strong objections that day.

One of the commission members (the dissenting vote in the panel’s eventual 5-1 approval of the bill) objected strongly because of another consequence of the legislation:

The millions of square feet of green, permeable surface in the city that it would potentially give away to create buildable space.

Calling a chart prepared by the Planning Department “disingenuous,” Commissioner Doug McCoach pointed out that under the bill, 97% of a lot could be covered with structures, paving or other impervious surfaces.

“That leaves just 3%,” McCoach said. “In a world where we have ever increasing storms, we have flooding problems, we have infrastructure that’s failing – I just don’t think it’s responsible.

“It’s contrary to what we’ve been about, in terms of the environment, for 25 years here in the city,” he continued. “I would never be able to approve or support the additional lot coverage.”

“It’s contrary to what we’ve been about, in terms of the environment, for 25 years here in the city”  – Planning Commissioner Doug McCoach.

A longtime architect, McCoach appeared disturbed by the degree of density and increase in impermeable surface permitted under the legislation.

“My god, we can’t,” he declared at the August 28 hearing. “We’ll never get it back. Once it’s paved, once it’s built, it’s gone, say goodbye.

“It’s so contrary to every single policy this city has passed for 20 years,” he added, citing the Climate Action Plan, various comprehensive plans and the Green Network plan.

Administration Backing

The so-called “bulk and yard” bill, along with Bill 25-0065 ending parking minimums, are on the agenda for a hearing today at the City Council’s Land Use and Transportation Committee.

They are part of the package of five zoning bills introduced in May and unveiled at a news conference by their biggest backer, Mayor Brandon Scott, together with City Council President Zeke Cohen, Councilman Ryan Dorsey and other supporters.

“The bills seek to actively undo the legacy of racist zoning laws that dictated access to opportunity,” the statement from Scott’s office declared, calling it “a common-sense package . . . that will make housing more abundant and affordable in Baltimore.”

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In addition to administration and council support, the bills have been promoted by a form letter that says that adjusting the present bulk and yard requirements “will further a diversity of building types in the city, allowing us to build both larger and smaller kinds of homes and enabling more people of different incomes and needs to live in more neighborhoods.”

Given “the close quarters of Canton and Fells Point and those neighborhoods, the difference between a 10-foot back yard and no back yard seems less impactful to me”  – Deputy Mayor Justin Williams.

At the August hearing, the administration’s point person on development, Deputy Mayor Justin Williams, dismissed concerns about the significant increase in the buildable area in rowhouse neighborhoods.

“R-8 already is kind of, the close quarters of Canton and Fells Point and those neighborhoods,” Williams said. “And so the difference between a 10-foot back yard and no back yard seems less impactful to the built environment to me.”

Williams, a former land use attorney recently handed the title of “permit czar” by the mayor, noted that he has “lived in waterfront homes for most of my time here.”

Likewise pushing back on McCoach’s concerns, was Planning Vice Chair Eric Stephenson, who remarked that “our R-8 neighborhoods – they’re already built, they’re already paved, they’re already impervious.”

“The idea that we just shouldn’t cover up any more land in the city for environmental reasons is just not consistent with our goals to grow the city,” Stephenson said.

He questioning the value of “postage-stamp-sized rowhouse backyards” that attract mosquitoes and “can sometimes be nuisances.”

“Who’s really asking?”

At one point, the discussion turned to the question of why the city was rethinking setbacks and other zoning changes in the first place.

“A lot of it is driven by the council members, their constituents, the concern from homeowners and people that live in these buildings and want to expand with additions and get denied at the zoning board,” Williams said.

“I want to see the data on that,” Floyd said. “Some people may be trying to do little things, but I question who’s really asking for this extreme solution.”

Some letter writers in the City Council’s bill file asked that question, too.

“We should be encouraging builders to go up, not out – too much of our cityscape is already built upon or paved over,” wrote Daniel S. Wilson.

“Who is asking for this change?” Wilson asked. “I fear the influence of out-of-town (Wall Street) investors who create more non-owner occupied housing and Airbnbs, resulting in the weakening of our community bonds.”