Ballot question aimed at stopping Baltimore’s Harborplace development still short on signatures as deadline nears

A campaign to put a question on ballots this fall asking voters to preserve parkland along Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, and subsequently scuttle a proposed redevelopment of Harborplace, is still short of the required signatures with the deadline approaching Monday.

The effort, spearheaded by former mayoral candidate Thiru Vignarajah, would ask voters to amend the city charter to create a system of dedicated parks exempt from private, commercial development.

Among the 20 parks the proposal would protect is Inner Harbor Park, the waterfront site where Harborplace sits. Residential development, private office space and buildings over 100 feet would be banned in the park if the question were to be put on ballots and passed by voters.

All of those elements are included in the plan from Baltimore developer MCB Real Estate to overhaul the beleaguered Harborplace. MCB, led by Baltimore-native P. David Bramble, wants to demolish two shopping and dining pavilions in favor of four taller, mixed-use buildings, including a conjoined tower stretching 32 stories. MCB’s plan calls for 900 apartments and office space on the site along with a large new park space, a two-tier promenade and realigned roadways.

A separate proposed charter amendment, needed to clear the way for the development, is already slated to appear on ballots this fall. The Baltimore City Council ushered that proposal through in March despite protests from some city residents who argued the plan would essentially privatize the public Inner Harbor shoreline, much of which was preserved as parkland by charter amendments in the late 1970s. Residents have objected to the proposed density, the removal of height limits, the inclusion of apartments and the road-narrowing plan.

Vignarajah has been a vocal opponent of Bramble’s plan. The Democrat pledged on the campaign trail to halt the development if elected, calling it a “backroom deal” between Bramble and Mayor Brandon Scott and an “exclusive resort for the wealthiest of the wealthy.”

At least 10,000 signatures from qualified city voters are required to place an item on the ballot for voter consideration. The deadline to submit petitions is Monday. Questions will appear on the ballot in November.

Vignarajah said this week that volunteers have collected thousands of signatures, but the drive is still short of the 10,000-signature threshold. The group, which includes the grassroots Inner Harbor Coalition, is planning a blitz over the weekend in hopes of collecting the remaining signatures. Vignarajah said he is “cautiously optimistic.”

“To have gotten what we believe will be an unprecedented number of signatures in a five-week window, whether it’s close to or clearing 10,000, is a reflection of the enormous energy of the volunteers, but also a reflection of how much the people of Baltimore don’t want what is in a private for-profit’s interest,” he said.

MCB declined to comment.

Jon Laria, chairman of Baltimore for a New Harborplace, a committee backing the city-sponsored Harborplace amendment, said Vignarajah is “misleading” Baltimore voters by saying the ballot question is about protecting parks “when he is really just trying to stop a generational opportunity for investment at Harborplace.”

“People have told us they have been deliberately misinformed about the true purpose of his petition,” Laria said. “We know Baltimore citizens support a reimagined and revitalized Harborplace. If Thiru really thought otherwise, he would be honest about what he is trying to do, and wouldn’t be relying on a false cover story about saving parks.”

Vignarajah argued he has been transparent about the ballot question’s intent. The measure’s first line states that it will “establish the Inner Harbor Park and nineteen other identified parks as a system of city parks forever dedicated to public use and to protect those parks from certain private, commercial development.”

Vignarajah said petition circulators, who have canvassed at city parks as well as other locations, have been first telling potential signers that the question would protect city parks from development. Secondly, they mention the proposed residential development planned for Harborplace, he said.

“I don’t know how we could have been more explicit,” he said.

Because the petition drive did not begin until mid-June, considerably later than other campaigns that have already secured places on the ballot, organizers have acknowledged it is a longshot. However, Vignarajah has proved to be a capable organizer in the past. After a late entrance into the mayoral primary race in January, he raised hundreds of small-dollar donations in a matter of months to earn public matching funds.