BALTIMORE — Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott wants to use tax-increment financing (TIF) to specifically target the more than 10,000 vacant houses in the city.
A bill to create the TIF district is set to be introduced at the City Council tonight.
It's part of Scott's $3 billion plan to eliminate vacant buildings over the next 15 years.
The TIF bill would create a non-contiguous district encompassing vacant homes, and let the city borrow up to $150 million over 15 years
Scott said in an announcement today:
As far as we can tell, this approach hasn't been implemented at this scale before anywhere else in the country... Once the TIF goes into effect, we will begin the process of the city gaining access to $150 million to turn vacant properties into housing that is affordable to our residents.
City Council President Nick Mosby would actually introduce two bills - one to create the TIF district, and one to allow the bonds to be issued.
The funds would be everyone from homeowners to "residents that want to be homeowners," to "small developers, our emerging developers, our nonprofit developers," said City Housing Commissioner Alice Kennedy.
The city has 13,173 vacant buildings, as of this morning, said Kennedy - "a significant decrease over the last four years, but we know that we have more work to do..."
Kennedy noted: "Baltimore is set to lead the way nationally with this new and innovative approach, and let us unite in supporting the legislation and reshaping our cities, reshaping our city by addressing vacant properties at scale."
Scott pointed out that "Baltimore had been stuck at 16,000 vacant properties for two decades, until we implemented a different strategy, beginning in 2020."
