Tenants

Venetian blinds and pool tables have replaced drug dealers and rats at the Harvey Johnson Towers in West Baltimore. Yesterday, nearly 50 tenants who had been angry about the conditions of their building gathered in a recreation room to discuss promised improvements with U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Democrat. They concluded that much has improved since the congressman came to help them last month. "If you had been at the first meeting and heard the complaints," Cummings said after the meeting, "well, this is a completely different thing."

Midway through a 90-minute meeting yesterday, Lottie Carroll, a tenant of a West Baltimore housing development, heard a list of concessions from the building's management that she never thought possible. The community and laundry room at the Harvey Johnson Towers will remain open three extra hours until 11 p.m. Trash collection will be Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, a switch from Tuesday and Thursday. The security system is being upgraded to include all-night monitoring, and a new company could begin rodent abatement as early as next week.

Let evicted tenants dispose of property The Property Owners Association of Greater Baltimore Inc. supports many parts of the City Council's proposed eviction chattels bill ("A better balance," editorial, May 8). We see the need to keep city streets free of such chattel, which consists mostly of abandoned trash and furniture tenants no longer want. And our industry is willing to take over the burden and cost of hauling these items to the city landfills. Further, we agree with the bill's provision which would give tenants advance notice of the time and date of the upcoming eviction.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin introduced legislation yesterday that would make it easier for real estate investment trusts to provide telephone, cable, Internet and other services to their tenants.The legislation, called the Real Estate Investment Trust Modernization Act of 1999, is similar to changes proposed in the budget President Clinton sent to Congress earlier this year.Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, and the bill's co-author, Republican Rep. Bill Thomas of California, said forbidding REITs from providing these and other nonreal estate services to their tenants puts them at a competitive disadvantage.

Unwilling to spend $50,000 to $100,000 to restore electricity to buildings scheduled for demolition next spring, Baltimore officials struggled yesterday to relocate nine tenants who have been without power for a week or more at the Hollander Ridge public housing complex.The 1,000-unit complex is scheduled for demolition in April to make way for a $51.5 million village for low-income senior citizens."We don't want to throw good money after bad when we're going to take this down," Zack Germroth, spokesman for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, said in explaining the reluctance to make electrical repairs.

A former Westminster school building will reopen next week )) with a new role and a new name.The former West End School will become West End Place. The renovated building will feature an adult day care center and eight studio apartments for low-income seniors.Karen K. Blandford, Westminster city housing and community development administrator, obtained $710,000 in grants for the renovation of the school building at 7 Schoolhouse Ave. It most recently housed the Westminster Senior Center.Family and Children's Services of Central Maryland Inc. contracted with the Westminster Common Council to use the city-owned building after it became vacant in October 1996.

A number of residents of an upscale apartment complex in Ellicott City allege that the management company is trying to silence its critics by evicting them.Some tenants of Orchard Park Apartments on Pine Orchard Lane contend that the heavy-handed tactic has left residents too scared to voice complaints."This is crazy," says Edward Strauss, a three-year tenant who was served a 30-day eviction notice two weeks ago after he allegedly used profanity toward an employee. "If you tell them that anything's wrong, they throw it back in your face."

A former Westminster school building will reopen next week )) with a new role and a new name.The former West End School will become West End Place. The renovated building will feature an adult day care center and eight studio apartments for low-income seniors.Karen K. Blandford, Westminster city housing and community development administrator, obtained $710,000 in grants for the renovation of the school building at 7 Schoolhouse Ave. It most recently housed the Westminster Senior Center.Family and Children's Services of Central Maryland Inc. contracted with the Westminster Common Council to use the city-owned building after it became vacant in October 1996.

Hoping to persuade Baltimore County officials to spare their apartment complex from the wrecking ball, residents of Savoy East in Randallstown have mounted a petition drive and plan to appeal to the County Council this month."

Six years ago, hoping not to crowd low-income residents into any one neighborhood, the Howard County Council barred any landlord from discriminating against applicants who receive government housing subsidies.Now, the county worries that the stringent law may be encouraging just what it was meant to stop.Some landlords, concerned that their apartment complexes might take on the stigma of a public housing project if they can't reject low-income tenants, have persuaded housing and civil rights officials to recommend changing the law.The proposed change, discussed at a County Council public hearing last night, would allow landlords to reject prospective tenants who receive government subsidies once 20 percent of their rental units are occupied by such tenants.

Residents of Howard County's oldest public housing complex would face higher rents this fall if county housing officials can persuade skeptical Housing Commission members to go along with their proposal. A vote on the idea for Hilltop Housing in Ellicott City split the four commission members in attendance 2-2 Tuesday night, meaning the proposal failed, but Deputy Housing Director Thomas Carbo said he and Housing Director Stacy L. Spann will bring the issue back at the Aug. 18 meeting in the county's Gateway building.

Now that Annapolis' Market House has shed an 18-month legal battle, city leaders have begun finding tenants to fill the historic landmark and planning its $1 million renovation. "The city is happy to close the chapter on litigation and focus again on making the Market House the centerpiece of Annapolis," said Jonathan P. Kagan, the city's lawyer. "That's the goal." Specifically, Mayor Ellen O. Moyer's goal is to fix the heating and cooling system and move short-term tenants into the nearly vacant property by Friday, she said.

On Monday, the Baltimore County Council unanimously enacted stronger zoning regulations governing rooming and boarding houses in an effort to deter irresponsible landlords from crowding rental homes with tenants. The law, which takes effect in 45 days, eliminates a loophole that allowed absentee landlords to circumvent zoning and create limited-liability corporations that gave tenants a small share of ownership. Rules limiting the number of unrelated tenants in a house to two do not apply to owners.

Prompted by complaints of irresponsible landlords and tenants, the Baltimore County Council is scheduled to vote Monday on strengthening the law governing rooming and boarding houses. The proposal would eliminate the ability of absentee landlords to circumvent zoning regulations by creating limited liability corporations giving tenants a small share of ownership. Rules limiting the number of unrelated tenants in a house to two don't apply to owners. Residents say the practice is especially a problem in neighborhoods near college campuses.

With an apparent compromise reached last week over the location of a new arena at Towson University, is it possible Baltimore County's town-gown relations are now smooth as a silk suit? Of course not, and unhappy campus neighbors have the usual suit-slinging suspects to blame - lawyers. If there's one thing that sets homeowners in campus-area communities on edge, it's the proliferation of homes leased to students and concerns over trash, late-night parties, noise and the like. Because of a legal loophole, the county's ability to regulate such properties recently took a serious hit. Last month, a hearing officer ruled that county law limiting to two the number of unrelated adults living in a rental property couldn't be applied to a group of four TU students living in a Towson Park townhouse.

Baltimore officials want to be able to quickly intervene when they uncover drug dealing at stores and restaurants. Testifying yesterday before a Senate committee, a housing department employee said "illicit businesses" continue while the city waits more than a month to file a civil action against the property owner and its tenant - under a state law that they want repealed or revised. A House committee will hear testimony on the bill today. "What we're talking about are places that most often are just fronts for drug operations," said Robert Durocher, a city attorney with the housing department.

Some of the elderly, disabled and low-income tenants renting about two dozen houses in Essex and Middle River say they fear becoming homeless after their new landlord gave them 30 days to vacate homes that some have occupied for decades. "We're in very bad straits right now, and I'm scared to death," said Kimberly Briggs of Essex, a disabled resident who has lived in one of the houses for more than eight years. "I don't know what to do." The notices are an early sign, said Baltimore County Councilman Joseph Bartenfelder, of the "unforeseen circumstances" caused by the rental-property registration and compliance bill that the council passed in December.

Renters who face eviction in Baltimore because their landlords are in foreclosure would be notified and would have more time to move under a bill advanced yesterday by a City Council committee. Officials with Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration, which sponsored the measure, said the bill is intended to prevent tenants from being notified of a foreclosure for the first time when a sheriff's deputy arrives to evict them. The proposal, which was approved unanimously by a council committee and is expected to win full approval this year, could prove particularly important if the number of foreclosures continues to rise, proponents said.

Ammone Phavone didn't understand why a sheriff's deputy was on her doorstep with an eviction order. She scurried inside to get her lease. She told him she'd always paid her rent. Unfortunately, the landlords hadn't paid the mortgage. They'd lost the Baltimore rowhouse to foreclosure months earlier, and now the lender - finally able to take official possession - was making sure it was empty. A real estate agent acting as the lender's representative was just as surprised to find Phavone there last month as she was to hear that she'd have to leave.

When Baltimore prohibited landlords from tossing evicted tenants' belongings onto sidewalks last fall, the city anticipated cleaner neighborhoods, less work for its crews and a big savings for taxpayers. But the ordinance, which took years to win approval, might be causing a less predictable shift in the rental market: Early data suggest that in addition to reducing the amount of unsightly personal property dumped on streets, the law is cutting down on the number of evictions. In the five months since the law took effect, evictions have fallen 25 percent - from 2,723 to 2,050 - compared with the corresponding period a year before, according to city statistics.