A judge ruled in favor of a controversial mixed-use project in Charles Village on Monday in a dispute between Baltimore-based MCB Real Estate and a homeowner who argued the building’s height was unlawful and unhealthy.
San San Yu, owner since 2008 of a two-story rowhouse on 32nd Street, filed suit in May in Baltimore Circuit Court against the development team and city officials.
The lawsuit accused the Baltimore City Council of making legal errors when it approved an ordinance allowing the former longtime home of local grocer Eddie’s Market to be redeveloped as a seven-story building with student apartments and retail.
Yu, who lives across an alley from the site, objects because the building would tower over her end-of-group home in closer proximity to existing buildings, blocking sunlight and air, her attorney, John C. Murphy, said during a two-hour court hearing before Judge Lawrence P. Fletcher-Hill.
Murphy said Yu estimated her home would lose more than $180,000 in value. Yu, who suffers from lung cancer, now has the benefit of sunlight streaming in from the west, Murphy said.
“She feels her health is threatened by not having light come in,” he said.
Partners MCB, the developer of Harborplace and Workshop Development announced plans for the Charles Village project three years ago after buying the Eddie’s building for $1.5 million after the owners retired. It will replace the Eddie’s building and a second commercial building on the block.
The proposed redevelopment, just a few blocks from the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus in an area known for its historic rowhomes, was initially planned for about 220 student housing beds.
It will include Washington-based independent grocer Streets Market. Streets opened a temporary store in the former Eddie’s and plans to anchor the new project.
The City Council had amended zoning to allow the taller building. About 127 people had signed up in opposition to that proposal, which would make the change in a designated planned unit development, at the developer’s request.
Murphy and Thiru Vignarajah, another attorney for Yu, argued that development should be subject to a 12-acre Charles Village planned unit development zone approved by the council in 1996 that generally limited height to five stories.
Comprehensive rezoning in 2017 known as Transform Baltimore grandfathered in such planned development zones, the attorneys argued.
Any council approved zoning changes had to “meet a standard of not having an adverse effect on surrounding properties,” Murphy said.
Jamar Brown, an attorney for MCB and Workshop, said the council’s amendment came about after working with and gathering input from community members for several years.
As a result, he said, the project went through a redesign that offers benefits such as a widened alley, sound buffers, building notches to lessen shade, an improved streetscape and retention of a neighborhood grocery store.
He said Yu failed to identify any legal errors and contended that the council has the authority to make amendments when adverse effects are outweighed by community benefits.
“There will always be some adverse impacts of every development project,” Brown said.
After the hearing, Yu said she hopes to appeal. Several neighbors who attended said they were disappointed in a project they fear will open the door for similar redevelopment.
One resident, Carol Anderson-Austra, said she opposes a project she believes will clash with “the character of the neighborhood and the aesthetics.”
Douglas E. Schmidt, a principal with Workshop Development, countered that developers, over several years, “went through design changes in response to the community.”
He said developers are working on obtaining permits and hope to break ground by late spring or early summer.
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