Vacant Properties

Baltimore's effort to recover millions of dollars in lost revenue stemming from the wave of home foreclosures that followed the collapse of the housing market in 2007 was vindicated Thursday when Wells Fargo Bank, the nation's largest mortgage lender, agreed to pay at least $175 million to settle claims that it discriminated against African-American and Hispanic borrowers by steering them into high-cost, subprime mortgage loans. Baltimore will receive $7.5 million, and seven other communities - Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington - will benefit as well The Justice Department, which announced the agreement, said it is the second largest fair-lending settlement in its history.

The vacant rowhouse at 825 N. Caroline St. has long been an open-and-shut case for the city. Opened up by somebody — vandals, junkies, homeless people, whoever — and then shut by public works crews. Then opened up again. It was inside this home that police say a 13-year-old girl was raped Oct. 17, after being yanked into the unsecured building and thrown into the dusty basement. A 48-year-old man was charged last month in the attack. The city has made several attempts over the years to keep people out of the East Baltimore property: A crew from the Department of Public Works boarded up the house in July 2008, when it was city-owned.

The City Council is considering a bill that would make it easier for renters and first-time home buyers to purchase vacant city-owned houses."What this bill does is to free the vacant houses, to get them into the hands of the people. The city takes years to free a vacant house for sale," said City Council President Mary Pat Clarke, who introduced the bill Monday night. She said she hoped many of the houses could be sold for as little as $1 each.Ms. Clarke, who unsuccessfully sponsored similar legislation 11 years ago, said she was moved to dust off the bill after spending a recent night at the Lexington Terrace high-rise housing project.

Where the passengers on the tour bus rolling west on North Avenue saw blocks of crumbling and abandoned buildings and overgrown lots, Lou Fields envisioned another Pratt Street in the making. Fields, who heads a nonprofit heritage tourism group, is leading an effort to revitalize what he views as one of the city's most overlooked thoroughfares. Progress is possible, he says, even in tough economic times. "Attention, awareness and appreciation — if you don't have those things going on, nothing's going to happen," said Fields, who views his role as that of "visionary crusader.

The proposal to set up a Land Bank Authority for Baltimore may well, as Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration contends, streamline the sale of vacant city-owned property. But it is unlikely that the mere creation of the entity would substantially reduce Baltimore's backlog of abandoned houses and empty lots. That's because the fundamental reasons there continue to be so many vacant properties in the city - about 30,000, a third of them city-owned - are economic, not bureaucratic. Indeed, the very existence of vacant properties can be traced to the most basic of economic principles: supply and demand.

The abandoned rowhouse next door to Wendy and Brian Malaney has been a nightmare of a neighbor. The rowhouse's roofing material blew off, and water seeped through the Malaneys' adjoining walls. Later the pipes burst in the neighboring property, flooding their basement. The air they and their two young daughters breathe is now heavy with the noxious stink of mold. Abandoned buildings are a perennial problem in Baltimore — a city where many residents share connecting walls.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake hopes to attract 10,000 families to Baltimore in the next decade — which would reverse more than a half-century of population decline — and would like to serve at least one more term beyond the one she begins Tuesday. "If Baltimore is to have a future, the leadership in the city has to focus on making the city a vibrant, growing city," Rawlings-Blake said in an interview Monday. "If you're not focused on growing it, you're resigned to a slow death.

Mayor Martin O'Malley recently announced plans for the city to take over about 5,000 of the tens of thousands of vacant properties that blight many Baltimore neighborhoods. What do you think the city should do with its abandoned properties? We are looking for 300 words or less; the deadline is Feb. 18. Letters become the property of The Sun, which reserves the right to edit them. By submitting a letter, the author grants The Sun an irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use and republish the letter, in whole or in part, in all media and to authorize others to reprint it. Letters should include your name and address, along with a day and evening telephone number.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she would accelerate redevelopment of Baltimore's more than 30,000 vacant properties by cutting bureaucracy and speeding the sales of city-owned properties. "Vacant houses are more than just an eyesore," Rawlings-Blake said at a Wednesday morning news conference. "Just ask someone who lives next door to one. " Vacant properties constitute one of the city's most pernicious problems, depressing home values and blighting the landscape. Officials have counted 16,000 unoccupied buildings, which harbor vagrants, attract vermin and pose fire hazards.

The incoming mayor, Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, could have a tremendous impact on improving the city's housing market by committing to lowering property taxes and pushing for a land bank authority to help the city get control of vacant homes, said Joseph T. "Jody" Landers III, executive vice president of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors. The city has seen its tax base erode as it struggles to compete with the declining home prices and lower tax rate of the surrounding counties, Landers said.