Join the Fair Development Campaign on Wednesday, July 17, at 4pm for a demonstration in front of City Hall to protest the proposed $107 million TIF for the Harbor Point project (see the flyer below). The city council committee on Taxation, Finance and Economic Development will hold a hearing on the TIF at 5pm, just after the demonstration.
The proposed $107 million TIF for Harbor Point (Beatty Developers Group, LLC) has renewed a long-term debate in Baltimore about development, the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC), and the future for working class people of color in Baltimore. Time and again, the city has awarded our resources to wealthy developers at the taxpayers’ expense in the hope that money will trickle down. This model has failed.
Over $2 billion of public money has been spent on the Inner Harbor since the 1970s, yet many Baltimore residents remain in low-wage, temporary, and unstable jobs that keep them in poverty. Nineteen percent of Baltimore Residents are living below the poverty line.
This Harbor Point TIF deal is more of the same.
Under the Harbor Point Proposal the city may not get tax payments until 2025!
The Project will likely take 1000 office workers out of downtown.
To date there is no commitment to improve the area of Perkins Homes.
The Project allows for another hotel in a market where hotels are already struggling for occupancy.
Without the $107 million TIF investors would earn 9% return on their money, with the TIF they would earn 12.5%.
Baltimore citizens are told that we are in a budget crunch, meanwhile our communities are in need of community resources, such as housing, jobs, schools, recreation centers, and fire stations.
This deal is great for the developer, and bad for Baltimore residents.
We Need Fair Development NOT Failed Development.
In April, hundreds of city residents took to the streets calling for development that prioritizes worker and community needs over private profit (see the short video here). Development should promote good jobs for city residents, make economic sense for the whole city, ensure that residents’ needs are met, and that citizens have full access to participation. The proposed Harbor Point development does none of this.
The Fair Development Campaign is a joint collaboration between UNITE HERE Local 7 and United Workers, and has been endorsed by AFSCME, IATSE, NAACP, Interfaith Worker Justice, the Presbytery of Baltimore, and several community organizations.