Councilman Mark Conway spoke in a gentle, almost apologetic, manner when he voted last night against two high-priority Brandon Scott administration bills designed to usher in apartment construction and greater density across Baltimore.

Agreeing with the mayor’s aim to “build more,” he alluded to “inconveniences and challenges” in “areas that don’t currently have development.”

Not James Torrence.

The 7th District councilman, representing the west wing of Baltimore’s Black Butterfly, told his City Council colleagues exactly what he thought will happen if they enact bills he described as instruments of redlining and gentrification.

“To my residents in Sandtown-Winchester, I rise and I say this: we want to own land. We no longer want to rent it,” Torrence said, rapping on his desk for emphasis.

“I mean the Black women in West Baltimore who held up this tax base when white people left,” he said, drawing murmurs of agreement from some in the audience. “They want to enjoy the equity that we’re building in the city, not be displaced by high taxes or inconsistent policies that don’t see them . . . Redlining started in this community and we’re just furthering it.”

Who would benefit from the bills in the mayor’s Housing Options and Opportunities Act package?

Torrence had a bitter take on that, too, recalling a staff member’s comment that the legislation is “about those who would come, and not those who are here.”

“So when Black people leave the city, I want to make clear on this council record that I told you so,” he declared, drawing a silent nod of agreement from 13th District colleague Antonio Glover, who represents the east side of the Black Butterfly.

Divided Vote

The bills were approved by the Council on key second reader votes – but by unusually close margins for a body that is generally in lockstep and rarely gets called out so passionately by one of its own.

Bill 25-0064, the so-called bulk and yard bill, rezones rowhouse Baltimore neighborhoods to allow structures to be built close to – and in some cases right up to – the property line. It would allow parcels currently zoned for one unit to accommodate two units.

By one estimate, the bill would effectively “upzone” more than 50,000 residential properties.

It was approved 9-5.

Voting yes:  Council President Zeke Cohen and members Mark Parker (1st), Ryan Dorsey (3rd), Paris Gray (8th), John Bullock (9th), Phylicia Porter (10th), Zac Blanchard (11th), Jermaine Jones (12th) and Odette Ramos (14th).

Voting no: Members Danielle McCray (2nd), Mark Conway (4th), Isaac “Yitzy” Schleifer (5th), James Torrence (7th) and Antonio Glover (13th).

Bill 25-0065, the so-called parking minimums measure, removes the requirement that apartment developers provide off-street parking as part of the project.

This was approved 8-6, with the same lineup of votes, except that Phylicia Porter switched to a “no” vote.

Council Vice President Sharon Green Middleton, who was on record opposing both bills, was not present at the meeting.

Both bills will now come before the council for a third reader vote for final passage at its next meeting on Monday. If approved, the bills will require Scott’s signature to be enacted.

Another part of the administration’s zoning de-regulation package, Bill 25-0062, eliminates the the requirement for buildings between four and six stories to have more than one stairway. It received third reader final passage last night.

Telephone Town Hall Pitch

Perhaps the most consequential measure in the package, Bill 25-0066 rezones all of the city’s single-family neighborhoods to allow construction of multi-family dwellings – up to four units in what was formerly a single-unit home.

Not yet heard in committee, the bill was promoted last night via an unusual hour-long “Telephone Town Hall” featuring the mayor, State Housing Secretary Jake Day, Baltimore Housing Commissioner Alice Kennedy, Baltimore Permitting and Development Director Justin Williams and Baltimore Development Corporation CEO Otis Rolley.

Word of the event rolled out unevenly on social media over the weekend. Some residents reported they received a robo-call urging them to dial in and listen, while several community leaders reporting they’d had no notice of it.

Scott told listeners Bill 25-0066 would “create opportunity for all” by drastically cutting zoning rules and removing other barriers that keep Baltimore from growing and increasing its stock of affordable housing.

Day asserted that two-thirds of the price of a new house in Maryland is the result of the “soft costs” of regulation, considerably more than  costs in the state of Texas. Kennedy said that the city wants to see 147,000 new housing units in the city over the next 15 years.

At the start of the town hall, Scott called for an on-the-spot poll of listeners. He reported that 30% support the bill, 25% were opposed and 45% were unsure.

At the end of the meeting, the mayor called for a second poll, but he did not announce the results.

“Not pushing anyone out”

Introducing the sweeping suite of zoning bills last May, Scott anticipated the criticism.

“This is not about pushing anyone out of their neighborhood, especially those who live in those enclaves of Black excellence,” he said in a press release at the time. “This is not about erasing what you’ve built.”

Scott, Cohen and Dorsey, who chairs the powerful Land Use and Transportation Committee, have advocated the changes as a way to grow the city and promised that removing “outdated” zoning requirements would stimulate fresh and affordable new development.

Bill 25-0066, Scott had said, “creates a new category of ‘low-density, multi-family housing’ which will make it possible to build the types of housing that exclusionary zoning has long prohibited, expanding housing options in neighborhoods where racist zoning laws dictate who can live there, and how.”

Bikemore Executive Director Jed Weeks has appeared at several of the hearings on the bills to point out that, judging by the online bill files, the public is overwhelmingly in favor of the measures. Scores of people have signed their names to a form letter in favor of the package and emailed it to the Council.

Together, Scott’s measures “will work to make Baltimore a more affordable, walkable, and family-friendly place to call home,” the form letter says.

But when it comes to residents who have made their way to City Hall to speak on the bills, most have opposed them.

Speakers have decried the loss of green space resulting from shrunken setback requirements, the hardships on seniors and others trying to find parking in already-congested neighborhoods, and the loss of quality of life and stability if neighborhoods shift more toward rental units.

On the midday call-in show on WOLB 1010 AM yesterday, the bills drew heated commentary.

“Remember how they put people in high-rise projects that they then had to get rid of? This is just coming up with a way to put people in low-rise projects,” a caller to the show scoffed, calling on listeners to vote out any politician who backed the bills.

“My brown skin matters”

“There were concerns within my district about this bill,” the normally reticent McCray said last night, noting her eastside constituents’ opposition to the bulk and yard bill as the reason she voted against it.

Explaining her vote against the parking minimums bill, she cited “the day-to-day burdens this is going to place on my residents.”

“How are we going to retain our legacy residents, many who are Black?” McCray said. “They are the ones that I am losing.”

Torrence came with examples he said showed how other cities that made similar zoning changes displaced longtime Black and lower-income residents.

“In Washington D.C., rapid development and rezoning spurred an exodus of Black families as new luxury apartments rose in their place,” he said. “In Bedford-Stuyvesant, market-driven housing growth without anti-displacement safeguards resulted in longtime residents being replaced.”

“The home ownership rate for Black people in Bed Stuy fell from 71% to 44% in 10 years,” he asserted. “D.C. is no longer a Chocolate City.”

Torrence, who has spoken openly about being raised unhoused for a time by a single mother, addressed the Council with a voice that at times trembled with emotion.

“I have someone who is using a predatory business on Pennsylvania Avenue who has a methadone clinic who says if this bill passes he can open up two more facilities in my district,” he said.

For too long, he continued, “Black people have been given things and given things and given things because zoning does not have a racially progressive stance in terms of identifying that my brown skin matters, my property value matters.”

Torrence delivers his prepared statement at about 50:45.