In a “straw poll” on Monday, Mayor Brandon Scott’s Sisson Street Task Force voted unanimously to take a property at 2801 Falls Road off its list of candidates under consideration as a potential site for a city-run bulk trash drop-off facility.
The Falls Road site, currently used as a storage yard by the Potts & Callahan construction company, is one of three properties that the 13-member task force voted to eliminate from future deliberations about where to move the Sisson Street Sanitation Yard and Citizen Drop-Off Center at 2840-2842 Sisson St.
“I would like to say that I think there’s enough pushback on Falls Road relocation that, if there’s no objection, I would say that that’s probably one that we want to take off the list. Is that correct? Any objections?” asked task force chair and Baltimore City Council member Odette Ramos, who suggested eliminating the property as a relocation candidate.
Although the vote was preliminary and the task force serves the mayor in a solely advisory capacity, it was the first time since meetings began in October that the full task force has gone on record as stating it wants to stop considering the Falls Road parcel as a relocation candidate.
“All right,” Ramos said when no one objected to her suggestion about taking Falls Road off its list. “Again, this is a straw poll just helping us focus, okay?”
In August, after the Mayor’s Office first proposed the Potts & Callahan site as a potential bulk trash drop-off location, the plan drew widespread opposition on the grounds that the land is in a floodplain and located along a picturesque stretch of the Jones Falls Valley. In response, the mayor formed the task force to explore alternatives and recommend the best way for the city to handle bulk trash and hazardous waste disposal if the Department of Public Works closes the Sisson Street facility.
Public officials say they’re exploring plans to move the Sisson Street facility because the city has received a proposal to redevelop that property for a commercial use if the drop-off center can be relocated. Seawall, the likely buyer and developer, has proposed building a grocery store-anchored center on the land but hasn’t disclosed who the grocery store operator would be or made its plans public.
The mayor has asked the task force to consider all options, including keeping the drop-off center where it is, moving it to another site, or closing it and not replacing it at all. He didn’t take the Falls Road property off the table as a site for the task force to consider. He said in September that he’d like to receive the task force’s recommendations by December.
In four meetings so far, the task force has talked in detail about the pros and cons of six potential sites for moving the Sisson Street facility, including the Falls Road property. Monday’s 90-minute session was the first time the group took any steps to pare down its list. The task force also discussed several candidates that have been suggested since members began meeting, including a city-owned parcel under the Jones Falls Expressway (JFX).
The task force consists of five representatives of Baltimore city government and eight representatives of community organizations. In addition to Ramos, other city government representatives include council members James Torrence and Jermaine Jones; Valarie Matthews, a supervisor of traffic maintenance workers, representing the city’s Department of Public Works (DPW), and Alan Robinson, deputy director of DPW, representing the Mayor’s Office.
Other members include representatives from the Greater Remington Improvement Association; the Stone Hill Community Association; the Midtown Community Benefits District (including Bolton Hill, Charles North, Mount Vernon and Madison Park); the Reservoir Hill Community Association; the Hampden Community Council; the Charles Village Civic Association; Friends of the Jones Falls and Bikemore.
More eliminations
Monday’s meeting was held virtually and had more than 50 participants.
In addition to the Falls Road parcel, the other five sites that were discussed in detail include a closed landfill at Monument Street and Edison Highway; the “Camp Small” area west of the Jones Falls Expressway; 560 W. North Ave., near where a large salt dome is visible from the JFX; 400 W. North Ave.; and a large open area near Howard and 25th streets, owned by Seawall.
In its straw poll on Monday, the task force voted to strike two other properties from the list of relocation site candidates that it had been considering: Camp Small and the land next to the salt dome. Task force members were less firm about eliminating the former landfill site and 400 W. North Ave. but they seemed to be leaning toward taking those sites off their list. Torrence said he’s adamantly opposed to the 400 W. North Ave. site because it’s close to a predominantly Black neighborhood, Reservoir Hill. Ramos said she would like to keep the land at Howard and 25th streets on the list, but others said they didn’t want to keep it under consideration.
Sites discussed for the first time included land along the state’s light rail line near Wyman Park Drive; the “old ballfield” at Druid Hill Park; land near Sisson and West 26th streets, and the parcel under the JFX. Task force members decided to eliminate the first three but keep investigating the JFX site.
‘Growing lot of nothingness’
The JFX site is bounded by The Fallsway on the east, Madison Street on the north, Guilford Avenue on the west and Monument Street on the south. It’s located under an elevated portion of the JFX and has been used in the past as a parking lot.
Task force members said they would like to know exactly how large the parcel is, how much height clearance it would give a drop-off center, and where the access points would be.
Ramos described the land as a “growing lot of nothingness.” She warned that the federal government may not allow the city to put a trash drop-off facility under what is essentially a bridge. “I-83, even though we take care of it, is still a federal highway,” she said.
One point that no one talked about is how relocating the drop-off center to The Fallsway would affect any future plans to tear down the elevated portion of the JFX south of Mount Royal Avenue, an idea that has been suggested as a way to better knit the Mount Vernon historic district with neighborhoods to the east.
The late civic leader Walter Sondheim Jr., who died in 2007 at age 98, was a champion of the idea of tearing down the southernmost mile of the JFX. Since then, a succession of Baltimore mayors has never followed up on the idea, even as other U. S. mayors have taken steps to raze elevated highways that slice through their cities.
Deadline isn’t December anymore
Ramos said the next task force meeting will be on Dec. 8 and the mayor will have a swearing-in ceremony at City Hall on Dec. 11 for members that haven’t yet been sworn in. She said she would like the task force members to make site visits in the near future to properties still under consideration, including the parcels at Howard and 25th streets and at Guilford Avenue and The Fallsway, and also to the city’s current trash drop-off centers on Sisson Street and Bowleys Lane.
Ramos said she asked Scott if the task force could have more time to form its recommendations and the mayor agreed. As a result, she said, it will now meet at least into January.
A citizens’ group that follows the task force proceedings on Facebook — the ‘Jones Falls’ page — commented after Monday’s meeting about the group’s decision to strike the Falls Road property from its list of candidates under consideration.
“Straw polls are nice but not official!” the message said. “The task force will only make recommendations, but they don’t have final say! Don’t take today’s poll as a sign that this is over. It’s not yet!”
Is there a name attributed to the comment made on the FB ‘Jones Falls’ page? It would be nice to know who that might be.