Neighborhood Groups

WITH BALTIMORE relatively flush with money for the first time in years, there's no shortage of ideas on how to spend the funds. One of the most intriguing - and affordable - comes from Dennis Byrne, a longtime activist in the Wyman Park and Hampden neighborhoods of North Baltimore. Byrne's idea is to have the city funnel to community groups 50 cents or a dollar for each household in the area they represent. With about a quarter of a million households in the city, the proposal would cost no more than $250,000 a year.

A contested proposal to rezone part of a 32-acre tract on U.S. 1 in Elkridge near the community of Harwood Park will be withdrawn, according to the sponsor, Howard County Councilman Christopher J. Merdon. The withdrawal was announced at last night's County Council public hearing. "I was trying to make things work and get the place cleaned up, but I can't do it without ... the property owner," Merdon said. "We can't force him out. We can't force change on him." The landowner, Jim Roberts, whose decades-old business is considered an eyesore by some, vowed yesterday to clean up and screen his land with either a fence or trees.

A new city program to coordinate volunteer neighborhood watches was announced yesterday by Mayor Martin O'Malley and police Commissioner Kevin P. Clark as at least 100 people gathered by the "Believemobile" stage on a Park Heights street corner. O'Malley told the crowd that Baltimore's crime figures - which rank the city as the second most dangerous in America - remain "unacceptable." But he said that he has hope that good neighborhood programs will turn the numbers around. "We need to reach out, refine and take our neighborhood watches to the next level," he said.

The city Board of Estimates approved yesterday the planned purchase of 46 acres in West Baltimore for $20 to allow the replacement of a decaying, subsidized housing complex with a mixed-income community. Mayor Martin O'Malley said he would like to tear down the 970-unit Uplands Apartments south of Edmondson Avenue and replace much of the site with market-rate houses with garages and lawns. "The Uplands site is a tremendous opportunity for all of the neighborhoods around the Edmondson corridor," O'Malley said.

Since being selected in February to participate in a new partnership with the city, Brooklyn and Curtis Bay residents have reported housing violations, started an anti-prostitution plan and designed a summer program for children. "This is the best thing that has happened to us in a very, very long time," said Linda Bardo, 53, who has lived in the area her whole life. "We feel like we're going to get the attention we've needed for a long time." The Brooklyn and Curtis Bay area is one of six "clusters" selected to work with the city to develop what has become known as a Strategic Neighborhood Action Plan, or SNAP.

Helen M. McMahon, a volunteer and founder of the Poplar Ridge Neighborhood Association in her former Anne Arundel County community, died of a heart attack Feb. 25 at her home in Merritt Island, Fla. She was 76. Born in Baltimore and raised in Locust Point, Helen Merstof attended city public schools. She worked in the accounting department of the Procter & Gamble plant in Locust Point from 1940 until 1954. A longtime resident of Poplar Ridge, Mrs. McMahon helped establish the neighborhood association during the 1950s.

As Mayor Martin O'Malley declared yesterday that all secondary roads would be passable by today, community leaders gave mixed reviews to the city's snow-removal efforts - from tempered praise to outright hostility. "We are extremely dissatisfied because our street has not been plowed or salted," said Donna Beth Joy Shapiro, president of the North Bolton Hill Association. "I think it's a good thing for the mayor that elections are not held in February, because if the elections were held today, I don't think he'd be too popular."

The Neighborhoods of Greater Lauraville, with support from the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors, is launching a grass roots advertising campaign to lure Washington homebuyers to the more affordable Baltimore City neighborhoods. The initiative is designed to promote the neighborhoods of Lauraville, Beverly Hills, Arcadia, Moravia-Walther and Waltherson. According to Joseph T. "Jody" Landers III, executive vice president of the GBBR and a Lauraville resident, the homes are a good value when compared with the high price of housing in the Washington metro region.

A City Council committee's decision to grant historic status to a vacant, two-story firehouse at 906 Washington Blvd. has cleared the way for a $1.13 million renovation project in Southwest Baltimore. The Urban and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee's ruling also allows the project's developers, the Washington Village Pigtown Neighborhood Planning Council, to sell $200,000 in tax credits needed to finance the project. The City Council is expected to grant final approval of the historic designation this month.