With their investments jeopardized by the continuing spread of Baltimore's slums, two powerful groups of property owners are pledging unexpected support for a pair of proposed state laws that would make it easier for the city to seize rundown houses.
Banking officials and landlords have long opposed giving the city broad confiscation powers for fear that the ax would fall on them, placing millions in mortgages and property holdings at stake.
But their resistance has softened amid growing recognition that Baltimore's 40,000 abandoned properties are dragging down real estate values across wide sections of the city and acting as warrens of crime that have destabilized entire neighborhoods.
"Personally, on a gut level, I don't like to give government that much authority over property rights," said Sam Polakoff, president of the Baltimore Property Owners Association, which represents major landlords. "But this time is different. Baltimore is in a state of emergency, and, frankly, it's hurting our industry worse than anyone.
"Nobody in our organization, I don't think, wants to sit back and let this go on for a few more years."
Those sentiments are echoing in the halls of the State House after an article in The Sun last month about George A. Dangerfield Jr. A 29-year-old convicted drug dealer and slumlord who owns more than 120 rental houses in the city, he has become a symbol of Baltimore's housing crisis in the minds of many lawmakers.
Dangerfield had agreed to plead guilty Friday in U.S. District Court to his role in an alleged cocaine conspiracy that plowed its profits into slum rental houses. But he withdrew his plea Thursday and is now scheduled for trial June 14.
Next week, he faces three new hearings in Housing Court, charged with illegally locking out a tenant and failing to repair two blighted houses.
Dangerfield -- among the largest owners of vacant houses in East Baltimore -- was dubbed one of the city's 10 worst landlords by Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III. Dangerfield's case has focused attention on a problem that has festered for more than two decades.
If the city's vacant rowhouses were placed side by side, there would be enough to encircle the Inner Harbor 74 times. Property owners on some largely abandoned blocks have seen their house values plunge from $15,000 to less than $5,000 in a few years.
Demonstrating how desperate the situation has become, a planned $35 million urban renewal campaign that will repair or demolish 1,500 vacant rowhouses on the east side will run out of money without ever touching another 1,600 wrecks that the city also wanted to dispose of.
Rapid endorsement
It is grim numbers such as these that prompted 26 state delegates to endorse last week the most sweeping housing bill in a decade -- days before an official draft was posted in Annapolis. Another bill targeting criminal property owners is expected to receive a similar reception when it comes out next week.
"We're talking about blocks and blocks of vacant houses owned by landlords who live outside the city and could care less about their properties," said Sen. Clarence M. Mitchell IV, a Baltimore Democrat.
"The question for anyone looking at this bill is simple: Do we leave these to become crack houses, or do we let the city get a hold of the property so it can begin to repair itself?" he said.
If passed, the laws would:
Declare any property officially "abandoned" if it is unoccupied and in tax arrears for more than two years or found to be uninhabitable by the Department of Housing and Community Development. Across Baltimore, at least 10,000 houses fit those descriptions.
Allow city lawyers to file an immediate "quick take" request in Housing Court on any abandoned property -- instead of in Circuit Court, where backlogs are so severe that it can take months to get a hearing.
Give officials the power to take occupied houses that are in good repair if they are on a block that is more than 70 percent abandoned and in need of immediate demolition. Now, the city cannot demolish houses on occupied blocks, and unscrupulous landlords routinely allow tenants to live in slum dwellings rent-free to avoid demolition.
Speed the process of notifying interested parties that an abandoned house is in jeopardy. Now, the city must track down and notify anyone with a potential claim against a property -- including any heirs, banks and unpaid contractors -- a protracted exercise that often costs more than the property is worth.
Under the housing bill, the city would need only to run a newspaper advertisement to alert secondary parties. In all instances, city lawyers would have to appraise a property before taking it and place money in a fund to pay any owner who comes forward. But experts point out that the value of most abandoned houses is outstripped by tax debt, which totals more than $100 million.
'A way out'
In the rare case that the city would seize an occupied house, few owners are expected to complain at being bought out.
"Any responsible landlord will probably thank the city under those kinds of circumstances because it offers him a way out of a bad situation that he wouldn't have otherwise," said Polakoff. "Have you ever tried to sell a house on an abandoned block?
"You won't find many buyers, but you're still stuck with all the obligations and liabilities -- while your value steadily dwindles because of the condition of the block."
Bankers support the proposed legislation because "it makes it safer for us to invest in a neighborhood," said Chris LoPiano, a community development manager with NationsBank. "We're talking about putting all this money into rehabbing houses for sale, but we can't do that if there's abandoned properties all up and down the block for the simple reason that nobody will buy them and it's us on the hook."
Maria Johnson, who oversees more than $2 million in NationsBank projects in Druid Heights and Harlem Park, said abandoned houses burdened with city tax debts have been a serious impediment.
In one recent deal, the bank was able to acquire only 15 abandoned houses out of 35 it sought to buy for a homeowner investment program because the tax debts greatly exceeded the value of the rundown dwellings the bank wanted to rehabilitate.
"It has made it extremely difficult for us to assemble blocks of properties," she said. "It just whacks out our budget and makes a lot of things undoable. So it appears this bill would be a positive thing. It would give the city the power to help put these packages of houses together."
The proposed law would allow the city to seize blocks of abandoned houses on behalf of qualified third parties.
While most members of the Baltimore delegation in Annapolis support the measure for similar reasons, at least one remains to be won over. Del. Clarence "Tiger" Davis, a senior east-side Democrat, said he is concerned that "we are moving down the road toward Big Brother."
"I'm concerned about the rights we're giving away here," said Davis, who was among lawmakers who met with Dangerfield on Feb. 24 when he appeared in Annapolis to lobby against the proposal. "Sometimes a bill looks like something good until we see the other side of the sword. If they take [Dangerfield's] houses, whose will they take next?
"Frankly, I'm more afraid of government than I am of drug dealers."
But a property rights expert at the University of Maryland Law School said he sees few problems with the bill sponsored by Baltimore Democrats Del. Samuel I. "Sandy" Rosenberg and Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden after lengthy consultation with the state attorney general's office.
"It looks to me that it was thoughtfully put together and responds to any lurking constitutional issues," said Garrett Power.
Another bill sponsored by Del. Peter Franchot, a Montgomery County Democrat, skirts sticky constitutional questions about the city's power to confiscate property owned by criminals by making it a part of their sentence.
Under his proposal, to be formally introduced next week, anyone convicted of drug trafficking would be subject to an increased fine. If a convicted dealer were unable to pay, prosecutors could seize anything he or she owns to satisfy the debt.
"I think the bill will be a very important weapon to put a stop to the George Dangerfields of the world, who have managed to cheat the system by transitioning from drug lord to slumlord," Franchot said.
Dangerfield did not respond to a request for an interview yesterday. But a former tenant defended him in an interview.
"This man has rented to friends of mine who were on hard times -- without a credit check, without no money down, without no problem," said Angela Neal, 30, a corrections officer and mother of five. "He has rented to people who nobody else would rent to. He's a very nice guy. I just think this whole thing has gotten out of hand."
Pub Date: 3/08/99