Curtis Bay, in far south Baltimore, is well-known for what it has been fighting against – a CSX coal transfer facility that exploded, a polluting medical waste incinerator and another incinerator that, had it been built, would have been less than a mile from a school.

But at the same time, people there have also been quietly working for something – an affordable mixed-income neighborhood free from blight and real estate speculators.

Last weekend they threw a party to celebrate a milestone in their struggle.

They held a ribbon-cutting to mark the near completion of 1630 Hazel Street, the community’s first permanently affordable home, one of  four rowhouses acquired and rehabbed by the South Baltimore Community Land Trust (SBCLT) on a block severely damaged by a fire.

That 2017 fire was a turning point for Curtis Bay’s activists and youth leaders, who had just won a David vs. Goliath victory, defeating the trash incinerator project proposed by an Albany, N.Y., company.

“We rallied together in this very field to demand something different for our community. Not just for survival, but for a chance to thrive,” said Meleny Thomas, SBCLT’s development without displacement director.

“Our neighborhoods have long been cast as sacrifice zones. Places where the systems in place favored profits over people and used displacement as a tool, as a guise for betterment,” she continued.

“Now we have transformed entire blocks and lifted up our community, showing that real change is possible.”

She was standing in the middle of the once flame-scarred block, looking out past the crowd of well-wishers toward the grassy rec center space where activists and children have long gathered.

Reporters were often brought to the same spot to take photos of the immense CSX coal pile looming beyond the swings and slides.

On this day, though, visitors were asked to behold rowhouses with gleaming new hardwood floors and a fresh coat of hipster-gray paint.

New Housing Model

City government has been hesitant about community land trusts in the past, but the presence of Housing Commissioner Alice Kennedy, State Comptroller Brooke Lierman, Senate President Bill Ferguson and other dignitaries signaled the willingness of political leaders to embrace it.

“We’ve already allocated over $18 million in [Affordable Housing] Trust Fund dollars towards community land trusts in the city of Baltimore,” Kennedy pointed out, referring to the taxpayer-subsidized fund that is the major source for SBCLT’s Curtis Bay home purchases.

After years of failed development strategies, such as at southwest’s Poppleton neighborhood that drove hundreds of longtime residents out, Kennedy’s department is now crafting an “anti-displacement strategy.”

She told the crowd that land trusts will be “a critical piece of it.”

Under this model, nonprofits acquire and redevelop housing using subsidized grant dollars. Properties are then sold to income-qualified persons – in this case, families earning 50% or less of the area median income (AMI).

The organizations retain some stake in the homes they sell, with agreements that may split any price appreciation between the trust and the buyer or cap any resale price.

The idea is to keep the homes affordable for the next buyer.

“Say you’re in the home for a number of years, and you decide to relocate away from Curtis Bay. Then the home will remain affordable for the next homeowner,” the Land Trust’s Greg Sawtell explained.

“That is achieved through the shared equity resale formula, so when you sell, you retain a portion of the equity that’s been accrued in the home. And the remainder of that is kept tied to the property,” he continued.

“The Land Trust is essentially the landlord that doesn’t go away. It’s there whether you need help finding direct financial support or reputable contractors”  – Greg Sawtell, SBCLT.

One benefit for the purchaser, in addition to the affordable price, is the support SBCLT promises to provide even before the sale is completed.

Homeownership readiness sessions will assist with credit counseling or financial repair. And should the new home owners require it, SBCLT promises to help with challenges ranging from a sudden need for roof repair to difficulty paying the mortgage.

“The Land Trust is essentially the landlord that doesn’t go away,” Sawtell said. “It’s there whether you need help finding direct financial support or reputable contractors.”

The owner will be required to pay a small fee toward SBCLT’s stewardship fund, the purpose being not to generate revenue, Sawtell said, but to provide “an early warning sign where, if a homeowner is missing payments, it could be an indication more support is needed or something has changed financially.”

Homeowners will be able to participate in the governing structure of the land trust, reporting issues and suggesting priorities. “It’s an opportunity to make the community a stronger, better place,” he said.

Resident’s Realization

That vision of a safe, pleasant, affordable Curtis Bay is what drew resident Mary Petitti to get involved in the Land Trust.

Not that she has a lot of spare time for volunteer activities. She has a full-time job as a restaurant manager and a part-time job, and also picks up freelance catering gigs when she can to make ends meet.

That was the kind of work ethic that helped her and her husband buy a home in Curtis Bay after enduring years in dilapidated, crime-plagued apartments in nearby Brooklyn.

Addressing the crowd, Petitti explained how, when she met Sawtell in the Brooklyn Library and first heard about the Land Trust, she’d been focused on her kids’ education, trying to get them into better schools.

Thinking about those challenges, she came to realize that they couldn’t be addressed if she could barely afford housing.

“If you don’t feel safe, if you don’t have secure housing, if you don’t know if you’re going to be able to pay rent month to month, then you’re just working and working. You’re not able to go to your PTA meetings. You’re not able to go out and meet your neighbor, watch each other’s back, sweep the street,” she said.

“We need fair affordable housing and the Community Land Trust is making it happen with the support of our community leaders,” she said, adding “We just need more.”

Speaking later with The Brew, Petitti said she’s looking forward to the day when a critical mass of homeowners rejuvenate the city’s far southside.

Petitti lives up the hill on Inner Circle, where community leaders turned an empty lot into a public space and nurtured a cozy sense of community.

But as she looked out across Hazel Street, past the food trucks selling burgers and funnel cakes and the loudspeakers playing “We are Family,” she pointed out that the rec center playground often still doesn’t feel safe.

“I think in all these years I’ve taken my kids there, like, three times,” she said.

“Not for the faint of heart”

At the celebration, Land Trust leaders were feeling hopeful for the future, though still a bit tender about the delays and disappointments they’ve encountered along the way.

After the 2017 fire, Sawtell told The Brew, the city didn’t follow through on a commitment to acquire the properties through code enforcement and receivership and get them to the Land Trust. That paved the way for speculators to snap them up at a low price and sit on them.

“Eventually the city came around and did code enforcement and we got them. But at that point the auction price went up, so we essentially lost several years and thousands of dollars,” he observed. “Thankfully now, things are changing.”

Thomas had to wipe away tears when 10th District Councilwoman Phylicia Porter praised her tenacity over six years, describing the Land Trust’s work as “not for the faint of heart.”

“They have been on the side where people would not listen to them, where people would not take meetings with them, where people would not simply hear them and hear their pride,” Porter told the audience.

Health equity researcher Lawrence Brown, author of “The Black Butterfly: The Harmful Politics of Race and Space in America,” said he was amazed by what he found in 2018 when someone told him about the activism in Curtis Bay.

“I said ‘South Baltimore, what’s that?’ I’d never been. I’d been working in East Baltimore, West Baltimore,” recalled Brown, emcee for the event.

He lauded the group (“I realized this community is on the move!”) and Thomas, noting her personal accomplishment of picking up a PhD in public policy and administration along the way.

“That’s when I met now-Doctor Meleny Thomas!” he said, drawing cheers from the crowd.

Lots more projects are in the offing.

Plans are underway to build 10 affordable passive solar homes designed to be highly energy efficient. One of these, a duplex on Monroe Circle, is nearing completion.

Additional Land Trust homes are slated for Pennington Avenue and Locust Street.

Another project underway is the two-story building the group acquired, an old corner bar, which they plan to turn into the South Baltimore Environmental Justice Center.

Planning and pre-development costs are being covered by SBCLT’s $100,000 share of the legal settlement the state won from CSX last year in the wake of the explosion at the railroad company’s coal facility.

A reporter’s walk to that building from Hazel Street meant bypassing some broken glass and a large dead rat, and realizing that the property sits next to a boarded-up, grafitti-tagged vacant.

The two Land Trust members leading the mini-tour were more focused on how it will look and function some day in the future.

“It’s going to be a kind of community hub for science programs. A place for folks to gather, conduct research and advocate for solutions to all the environmental and social challenges they face,” Sawtell said.

With a broad grin, SBCLT member Toby Harris added, “Yes, it’s a work in progress.”