How to make the mayor’s housing plan more affordable | READER COMMENTARY

I read with interest Mayor Brandon Scott’s plan to attack the vacant housing in Baltimore (“Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott unveils $3B plan for vacant houses including new TIF,” Dec. 11). Crunching the numbers, his $3 billion comes out to a little less than $86,000 for each of the 35,000 properties he wants to address. Having worked with groups that have worked to rehabilitate vacant houses, I can say with certainty that that amount won’t do it for the vast majority of vacancies. Add in inflation for 15 years and you would need about twice that amount from private sources.

Here is an alternative suggestion based on the fact that a city of less than 600,000 does not need as many houses as a city of 900,000. Since the city has a map of most of the vacant properties (I’ve seen it), take a square block (houses that are back-to-back) with just a few occupied houses and move those people to renovated houses on blocks nearby. Then tear down all the houses and make a new local park.

This would eliminate vacancies that are not needed (and pose a danger to the nearby residents) while making the city greener. It would also be a lot less expensive.

— Mark Brenner, Baltimore

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