The people of Poppleton are fed up.
Six residents and the community association of a West Baltimore neighborhood stuck in a 20-year stalled redevelopment are suing numerous current and former city officials, agencies and the firm La Cité.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, is centered on the agreement between the city and New York-based La Cité Development.
The 2006 deal granted La Cité the exclusive development rights to a swath of land in one of the city’s oldest Black neighborhoods. That agreement, which has undergone a series of subsequent amendments, has largely controlled the fate of Poppleton ever since.
During that time, the developer has finished a single, two-building apartment complex. That’s a fraction of the upscale, high-density neighborhood that La Cite originally said it would build. For its part, La Cité has blamed the city for delays.
In June, the city said it was canceling its deal with La Cité, although the developer can proceed with a planned apartment complex for older adults if it can secure construction financing.
But Tuesday’s lawsuit — citing reporting from The Baltimore Banner — said the “one-of-a-kind, one-sided” agreement should never have been made. It seeks compensation for what it says are harms created by the foundering development.
“In no possible universe could this project or transaction ever have occurred in Guilford, Homeland, Roland Park or Ruxton,” the lawsuit said, referring to affluent, predominantly white Baltimore neighborhoods.
La Cité’s ambitious redevelopment plan required the demolition of businesses and rowhouses and the displacement of homeowners and renters. Backed by the power of eminent domain, the city has spent at least $15 million to buy up property, relocate residents, and clear the land.
Today, much of the neighborhood sits empty, while La Cité struggles to secure financing for the apartment complex for older adults. Officials with La Cité have said it can’t get financing because the city hasn’t pursued what they said is a critical tax incentive funding package.
The lawsuit names La Cité, its president Dan Bythewood, Jr., and limited-liability companies associated with the firm as defendants.
Bythewood and La Cité did not respond to requests for comment late Tuesday.
Mayor Brandon Scott and city housing commissioner Alice Kennedy are also named as defendants. A spokesperson for Scott did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Department of Housing and Community Development declined to comment.
Former Mayor Sheila Dixon, who was City Council president when the deal was struck, is also named as a defendant. In a text message, she wrote “Me? This is crazy.”
Much of the lawsuit is about eminent domain, which allows the government to take ownership of private property for projects in the public interest. Eminent domain has been used for decades by governments to displace residents and tear down neighborhoods in favor of another use.
In Baltimore, eminent domain has often meant the forced displacement of Black residents for projects like the “Highway to Nowhere,” a roughly 1.5-mile stretch of U.S. 40 that uprooted a ribbon of Black neighborhoods along the northern edge of Poppleton.
The government’s ability to use eminent domain was upheld in a 5-4 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005. But according to the Poppleton residents and their attorney, Tom Prevas of Saul Ewing LLP, there was a catch: The deciding justice wrote that eminent domain should face much more scrutiny if there was a possible political connection involved.
The lawsuit filed by Poppleton residents said there was a political connection between Dixon and La Cité, pointing to a 2005 feature on her in Essence Magazine. The longtime editorial director of Essence, Susan Taylor, is an investor and partner in La Cité.
Dixon said in an earlier interview that the article had nothing to do with the Poppleton redevelopment and that she and Taylor had an “on-going relationship for years.” Taylor has not responded to requests for comment.
The feature included a trip to New York and a makeover. It was published just as city officials overruled recommendations by staff to pick a different, more experienced development firm to revitalize Poppleton.
“The timing of this magazine spread is nothing short of extraordinary,” the lawsuit said.
Dixon later became mayor before leaving office in early 2010 amid an unrelated corruption scandal. She has run for mayor three times since then, including this year. La Cité and the Bythewood family have donated $34,000 to Dixon’s political campaigns, records show, and she has consistently supported the project.
Dixon is one of many local, state and federal politicians who have praised La Cité and its proposed redevelopment of Poppleton — even after it was clear the redevelopment was stalling.
La Cité has said its redevelopment efforts have raised property values in Poppleton. The lawsuit from residents said the opposite is true.
By taking properties, demolishing homes, and failing to build, the city and La Cité “crushed the market value” of homes in Poppleton, the lawsuit said.
“Poppleton, a once tight-knit community filled with thriving local businesses and families that have lived there for generations, is now an almost entirely abandoned and blighted ghost-town,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also takes aim at two recent transactions involving La Cité and city-owned land.
Last year, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City paid $550,000 to La Cité for a parcel of land that it plans to use for the redevelopment of a nearby public housing project.
The city owned that land, which covers less than half an acre, but La Cité held its development rights.
The housing authority — which is almost entirely federally funded — is not a city agency, but its oversight board is appointed by the mayor, and it works closely with city government. The lawsuit said the purchase was “particularly troubling” and that a deal of that size should have triggered more scrutiny.
The housing authority and its president and CEO Janet Abrahams are named as defendants in the lawsuit. A spokeswoman said the housing authority had no comment.
The second transaction questioned by the lawsuit involved the three-story rowhouse of Sonia Eaddy.
Eaddy’s home stands where a later phase of La Cité's development was supposed to go. The developer remains in its first phase. That didn’t stop the city from trying to use eminent domain to take her home and raze it, which is what happened to many of her neighbors.
Eaddy fought displacement associated with the planned redevelopment of Poppleton since its beginning, telling The Baltimore Sun in 2005: “The city is robbing people.”
When the city most recently renegotiated its deal with La Cité in 2022, the amended agreement spared Eaddy’s home, but it cost the city $260,000.
The lawsuit said that the city should never have made the payment because La Cité never owned that land and that the developer should repay the city and housing authority in addition to compensating residents for damages.
Eaddy and her husband, Curtis Eaddy Sr., are two of the six residents named as plaintiffs, as well as their neighbors Sterling Walker, Francina Walker, Yvonne Gunn and William H. Gunn Jr. All are homeowners in Poppleton, and Eaddy is the president of their neighborhood association, Poppleton Now.
Yvonne Gunn’s family has lived in a three-story rowhouse on West Fayette Street for more than a century. She initially supported the proposed development, but the lawsuit said she later felt like a political prop used by La Cité.
La Cité also faces a legal challenge from one of its key investors. Boston-based Arctaris Impact Investors sued the developer in a Massachusetts state court earlier this month.
Arctaris pledged more than $13 million to La Cité in 2022 for the planned apartment complex for older adults. Arctaris said in the lawsuit that deadlines have passed and no progress has been made, and it is suing to recoup its investment.
La Cité responded in a court filing last week. The investor has been refusing to approve critical funding requests, La Cité said in court documents, arguing that Arctaris is to blame for delays.
