Baltimore’s Land Use and Transportation Committee – and its chairman, Ryan Dorsey – were in a pickle.

Last year the City Council, urged on by Dorsey, approved legislation to get rid of the mandate for projects in the city to provide a minimum number of parking spaces.

As the body’s leading urbanist, Dorsey argued that the parking requirement drove up the cost of rental housing and reflected the antiquated values of a wrongheaded, car-centric society.

But then a request for more parking than the new law permits came before Dorsey’s committee from a high-profile source – Mayor Brandon Scott’s favorite developer, P. David Bramble, of MCB Real Estate.

For a grocery store planned on West North Avenue to complement its Reservoir Square project, MCB said it needs 65 off-street parking spaces – or nearly double the 36-spot maximum permitted under the new law.

After a tumultuous May hearing that pitted the company’s lawyer against community members, who argued MCB’s plans would cause traffic congestion and endanger schoolchildren and pedestrians, what would Dorsey do?

Even his usual ally, Bikemore’s Jed Weeks, opposed giving MCB the variance, and especially objected to the developer’s plan to convert the bus lane in front of the project to six metered parking spaces.

“I have pretty deep reservations,” Dorsey began today, about the company’s rationale for the variance.

But he went on to say at a hearing he would be voting “yes” on Bill 26-0150, permitting the full number of parking spaces, even though he acknowledged the bill “flouts the law, unquestionably.”

“I’m going to vote in favor of these [MCB’s] finding of fact just because, I think, the law should be changed and should be updated,” he said. “Basically, I’m happy to flout the law.”

Also voting “yes” to advance the bill were Council Vice President Sharon Green Middleton and Land Use Committee members Paris Gray, John Bullock and Phylicia Porter. (Councilmen Mark Parker and Zac Blanchard were absent.)

Dorsey bemoaned the fact that there is no special provision creating an exception in the zoning code for grocery stores.

“Somebody should change that,” he remarked. “Ideally, it would be somebody who’s trying to attract grocery stores to their communities in their district.”

Grave Concerns Remain

The unanimous committee vote came as a disappointment to members of the Historic Mount Royal Terrace Association (HMRTA), whose homes directly abut the project on the 600 block of West North Avenue.

“Our clients continue to be very concerned about pedestrian safety with the current planned design,” Amy Petkovsek, executive director of the Community Law Center, which represents HMRTA, told The Brew after the hearing.

“There remain grave concerns about the ingress and egress in a very congested area with pedestrian activity, bus lane, and parking,” she continued, noting that in April, Councilman Parker requested a traffic calming study that was never conducted.

But she added that the residents her organization represents “are very much looking forward to having the new retail opportunity in their community.”

Neighborhoods along the North Avenue corridor that serves as a gateway to West Baltimore have long complained of the absence of supermarkets and other basic amenities.

MCB initially promised to deliver retail, commercial space and apartments as part of its Reservoir Square redevelopment project. The company has since said the apartment component had to be dropped because rising incomes in the area meant it wouldn’t qualify for subsidies.

Instead, the sprawling development at Park and North avenues is building 120 market-rate townhouses, a $16 million city-funded office building to serve as a headquarters for the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development (MOED), and now is seeking a variance for a grocery store and liquor store at the 600 West North Avenue location.

Explaining her “yes” vote during the voting session today, Councilwoman Porter said “there is a larger issue at play” beyond the procedural and administrative concerns Dorsey described.

“This is a food priority area that does not have a grocery store in its area,” she said. “If this does not go through, then a grocery store will not go there. Therefore, people won’t eat.”

Two residents who oppose the parking variance called this argument a false choice.

“In the Black community, when you’re advocating for change, we’re often told, ‘Just take whatever you get, and you should be happy,’” said Reservoir Hill’s Carson Ward in an interview with The Brew.

“If it’s an issue of pedestrian safety, bike safety concerns, what kind of grocery store you want – none of that matters because you should just be happy because you’re getting a grocery store.”

Keondra Prier, president of the Reservoir Hill Association, said the safety issues they raised at the May hearing before Dorsey’s committee are urgent.

“Since that hearing, someone on a bike was hit and killed along North Avenue in Mount Royal,” she said. “It is a seriously pressing issue.”

As for next steps, opponents were startled by the fact that Dorsey acknowledged that granting the variance “flouts the law.”

“I think we’re going to appeal this on that basis,” Prier said. “I think we have to.”