A final vote is expected tonight on City Councilman Ryan Dorsey’s bill to upzone a nearly three-mile stretch of his northeast Baltimore district along Harford Road.

He and bill supporters say the measure – which allows multi-family housing along the commercial strip and a swath of residential terrain on either side – will energize the business corridor and attract new residents.

But opposition has been strong from residents, who last week sent a letter to Mayor Brandon Scott and City Council.

It expressed not only opposition to Bill 25-0093, but a sharp message to council members contemplating voting for it in the spirit of “councilmanic courtesy,” the tradition of going along with any colleague on matters affecting only their district.

“Residents in the Harford Road Corridor in northeast Baltimore are being robbed of their home equity and the quiet and peaceful enjoyment of their homes and neighborhoods due to an abusive exercise of power resulting from Third District City Councilman Ryan Dorsey’s push for the passage of the Harford Road Overlay Bill,” the letter, signed by 50 residents, said.

“In this situation, courtesy translates to complicity,” the letter added, urging council members to vote “no” when the bill comes up for final passage tonight or to abstain.

“Baltimore’s infamous ‘Road to Nowhere’ was built with good intentions . . . and the result was a lot of older thriving neighborhoods were destroyed”  – Letter to mayor and city council.

They likened Dorsey’s overlay proposal to the the destruction of Black communities in West Baltimore for highway construction that was never completed.

“The Council should recall that Baltimore’s infamous ‘Road to Nowhere’ was built with good intentions – the desire to serve businesses and stimulate investment – and the result was a lot of older thriving neighborhoods were destroyed,” the letter writers warned.

They also pointed to an opposition petition, currently with 958 signatures, and noted that if the bill passes and is signed into law, residents “will once again file a legal challenge.”

A previous lawsuit by residents nullified an earlier version of the bill in July, when a judge ruled that more than 1,700 residents and property owners affected by the zoning change were never given proper legal notice of it.

“I was elected to make change”

The current version of his bill was approved last month by the Transportation and Land Use Committee that Dorsey chairs, and then advanced by the full council by a 9-3 vote with two abstentions.

Dorsey has held two town hall meetings on the overlay bill and has been pushing back against his critics.

In one of his recent weekly newsletters to constituents, he denounced opponents this way:

“You may be familiar with the term NIMBY: Not In My Back Yard. I prefer the term BANANA: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything,” he wrote. “I was elected a decade ago to make change.”