Harborview

Plans for a 35-story hotel and office building in Baltimore's downtown received a boost last night when a bill providing a second tax break for the project was introduced in City Council.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke requested the payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, for the skyscraper that would be built at 1 Light St.The city granted $6.1 million in tax breaks for the project in June, but the developers have been seeking another PILOT that would save them an additional $9.5 million over 10 years.

MAYOR Kurt L. Schmoke's cancellation of a plan to spend some $27 million on the proposed HarborView development's waterfront shouldn't end public discussion of what would have been a blatant giveaway of public funds.After all, the project will probably come back later in another form. And there are still questions about how the city got involved in helping to make millions of dollars in improvements for developers wanting to build a 250-room Ritz-Carlton hotel and dozens of apartments near the 27-story HarborView apartment tower on Key Highway.

A crowd at the city tillWe should all be grateful to J. Joseph Clarke ("Developer presses for tax breaks," Aug. 1) for exposing the arrogance of developers who demand tax subsidies.Mr. Clarke's threat to leave a giant scar in the middle of downtown if he doesn't get a tax exemption is shameless political extortion.The danger of these so-called PILOTS (payments in lieu of taxes) is that developers have come to regard them as a matter of right anywhere downtown.Mr. Clarke's project is a classic mixed commercial development -- without even the pretense of being a convention hotel.

On a clear day, you can see all the way to Highlandtown, but plans to put a 15-story apartment building near the 27-story HarborView condominium complex on Key Highway have Federal Hill residents worried about the view.An announcement of $75 million in venture capital financing for a 275-unit building on the 42-acre HarborView property is expected next week. While current zoning laws -- passed when the city approved the condominium project in the late 1980s -- allow for up to six skyscrapers on the old Bethlehem Steel shipyard site, residents are hoping developers exercise restraint.

The president of HarborView, the outsized condominium tower and marina on the South Baltimore waterfront, is floating a new idea for the 42-acre property: a five-star hotel for business travelers.Richard A. Swirnow said yesterday that HarborView's owners -- HarborView Properties Development Corp. and Parkway Holdings Ltd., a Singapore-based conglomerate -- want to build a hotel.No financial plans or drawings have been done, though Swirnow said HarborView has commissioned feasibility studies and spoken with hotel chains and potential investors.

For East Baltimore residents who fought a losing battle against the Wyndham hotel, community activists in other parts of the city who have unsuccessfully opposed developments in their neighborhoods have a message: We feel your pain.Some have found that time has done little to heal their hurt, and the people are as upset about the projects today as when they were proposed years ago. Others have mellowed, saying the damage to their communities, though noticeable, has not been as great as they once feared.

The Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police estimates that the city could lose up to 350 of its most senior officers -- 11 percent of its force -- starting in January when a three-year pension incentive plan expires.City Board of Estimates members accepted yesterday a $15.8 million, three-year federal grant to hire and train 140 officers, which Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke hopes would help to soften the blow of any exodus because of the pension extension expiration.Baltimore instituted the Deferred Retirement Option Plan in 1996 to try to keep officers with more than 20 years of experience.

The developer of HarborView, the planned luxury residential complex in South Baltimore long stalled by a glut of city condominiums, is close to obtaining a financial shot in the arm that could bring the first new construction there in seven years.Lubert-Adler Partners, a Philadelphia venture capital firm, would inject $75 million into the 42-acre project, formerly the site of a Bethlehem Steel shipyard and the largest residential project ever planned in Baltimore.The funding would likely spur work on a $50 million upscale apartment building, which has been on the drawing board since at least 1994, said a source familiar with HarborView Properties Development Co., the project's developer.

In New York, Donald Trump is asking $100,000 a month for a 6,000-square-foot bite of the Big Apple.And if he gets his asking price, the tycoon's penthouse will be the highest priced rental in New York City, ever.And it's not even furnished.Baltimore's highest-priced residential property, a $10,000-a-month penthouse at HarborView Condominiums, is obviously rentally inferior.But at least it's furnished.One hundred thousand dollars a month. "Somebody would really have to be stupid to spend that kind of money.

As Baltimore authorized as much as a $2.05 million tax break yesterday for the HarborView luxury condominium tower, the man who made the deal possible said he regretted it.Baltimore Sen. George W. Della Jr., who quietly pushed through the legislation that created the tax plan, said he never envisioned a tax waiver of the magnitude that the city gave the owners of the struggling upscale development on the Inner Harbor."

A prominent Key Highway development could expand after years of delay - and despite community concerns - under a zoning proposal advanced by a City Council committee last night. The legislation would allow HarborView's developer, Richard A. Swirnow, to build a 26-story tower, and also to proceed on an adjacent 17-story building west of the high-rise on the site. At a lengthy hearing before the Urban Affairs and Aging Committee yesterday, proponents argued that design on the towers was the best HarborView had put forward for the project because it preserved greater views and access to the water.

After years of delay, Baltimore is moving to allow a prominent developer to build two residential towers along Key Highway - renewing community concerns about the future of the peninsula's vanishing waterfront. If the City Council approves the zoning change, HarborView developer Richard A. Swirnow would be permitted to build a 26-story tower and could also proceed on an adjacent 17-story building west of the high-rise already on the site. City officials say the proposed design is the best they have seen because it maintains better views of the water for surrounding residents and includes first-floor shopping to enliven Key Highway.

For homeowner Michael G. Curry, it was the beautiful city views that drew him to trade a 40-room Guilford mansion for a three-bedroom condominium in HarborView Tower. "No matter where you are in the unit, you see the skyline, you see the water -- even in the master bath," says Curry, who purchased the unit about five years ago and has completely renovated it from top to bottom, removing walls to better configure the space. The condo, one of the few three-bedroom models available at HarborView, has an open floor plan with multiple rooms offering city and Inner Harbor views, including the living area, the dining room and the master bedroom.

To the relief of many in South Baltimore, Mayor Sheila Dixon has blocked a plan to build two more waterfront towers at HarborView. Faced with intense community opposition, the mayor pushed HarborView's developer, Richard A. Swirnow, to rescind his request to the City Council that would have enabled him to keep building even though he technically had exhausted his construction options. "I have decided to withdraw [the bill] and instruct the Planning Department and Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods to bring all parties together to find common ground," Dixon wrote in a letter to a community leader who opposes the proposal.

People have whispered for years about the Baltimore widow who sleeps at her boyfriend's house. If the gossip seems almost quaint in this day and age, that's because it turns on an old-fashioned American value: representative democracy. Rikki Spector represents Northwest Baltimore on the City Council, but she usually hangs her hat at her beau's Inner Harbor condo. What's been an open secret in Baltimore political circles got a public airing last week, at a City Council committee meeting, The Sun's Jill Rosen reports.

A plan by HarborView to build two more waterfront towers - despite having exhausted its construction options on the South Baltimore site - has aggravated long-standing tensions between the prolific developer and Federal Hill area neighborhoods. People who live south of HarborView, with its hundreds of luxury homes that multiplied at the water's edge in the past two decades, are urging city leaders not to indulge a developer who they say has blocked views, hung no-trespassing signs, violated height limits and defied stop-work orders.

City isn't upholding its own zoning rules The city's slow and tepid response to zoning violations in the HarborView development is inexcusable ("HarborView wins height fight," Sept. 3). Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. It is business as usual for city officials (who are paid by city residents to look out for their interests) to look the other way when developers come to town. When forced to pay attention by community residents and City Council members, city inspectors, zoning officials and planners often pay only lip service to residents' concerns.

In a blow to a coalition of Baltimore community leaders who say penthouses atop the Pier Homes at HarborView violate height limits and should come down, a city housing officer has affirmed her department's decision to allow the developer to continue building rooftop structures at the luxury waterfront project. Although neighborhood groups argued at an Aug. 4 hearing that the penthouses - with stairways, elevators and sinks - are more like living space than shelter for mechanical equipment and are in violation of the city's 58-foot height limit, hearing officer Jan Goslee declared the rooftop structures in compliance.

Tall condos curtail Federal Hill's vistas Thanks for the clear and concise article concerning the ongoing drama of the HarborView homes and efforts of local citizens to get city officials to enforce the city's own regulations ("Harbor rooftop hearing today," Aug. 4). Certainly this area of Baltimore needs development and private investment - no one is arguing that point. But as affected neighbors, we expect this development to be conducted responsibly, and need assurances that the city will enforce its regulations objectively.

To put it gently, HarborView's developer and the coalition of community groups challenging his right to build penthouses atop his latest waterfront project don't agree on much. Certainly not much that came up during yesterday's seven-plus-hour hearing on - tediously - what exactly is allowed on top of the roofs of the Pier Homes at HarborView, pricey real estate under construction along the South Baltimore waterfront. At the heart of the disagreement is HarborView developer Richard A. Swirnow's contention that city law allows penthouses with enclosed stairways and elevators on top of the 58 feet permitted for the homes.