Baltimore City residents file petition to review "misleading" ballot question about Harborplace developments

BALTIMORE -- Twenty Baltimore City residents filed a petition challenging a ballot question surrounding plans for the future of the Inner Harbor's Harborplace. 

The developer, MCB Real Estate revealed its plans for a reimagined Harborplace in 2023.

The nearly billion-dollar project would rid the existing concrete pavilions to make way for a mixed-use complex that would include residential towers.

On Thursday, the residents filed a petition for judicial review to challenge the content and arrangement of Ballot Question F. 

"Question F is written in a convoluted, borderline incoherent way that is likely to confuse and mislead voters. For something as simple and offensive as removing land from a public park for private development, the ballot language must be clear," said the plaintiff's lead counsel, former Maryland Deputy Attorney General Thiru Vignarajah.

Now, they're calling on the court to review it ahead of the elections in November. 

"I am telling you this is meant, it is designed to make people just check off the box," said Thiru Vignarajah. 

On Friday morning, the former city and state prosecutor stood beside the group of Baltimore City residents in a press conference to announce their petition. 

"This language is likely to confuse and mislead voters so that they don't know the actual effect of it," Vignarajah said. 

Here's what the current ballot question states as of September 2, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections website: 

"Question F is for the purpose of amending the provision dedicating for public park uses the portion of the city that lies along the Northwest and South Shores of the Inner Harbor, south of Pratt Street to the water's edge, east of Light Street to the water's edge, and north of the Key Highway to the water's edge, from the World Trade Center around the shoreline of the Inner Harbor including Rash Field with a maximum of 4.5 acres north of an easterly extension of the south side of Conway Street plus access thereto to be used for eating places, commercial uses, multifamily residential development and off-street parking with the areas used for multifamily dwellings and off-street parking as excluded from the area dedicated as a public park or for public benefit."

"This is what the Mayor and the City Council, approved by the city solicitor, believes is going to make clear that we are transferring and converting public parkland into property on which luxury apartments can be built,' said Vignarajah. 

Residents claim they tried for months to review the ballot question before it was released in September.  

"So if anyone says why did you wait until the last second, I am here to tell you that we didn't. We've been trying for five months to get a review of this language," said Tony Ambridge, a Baltimore City resident, and former Baltimore City councilman.

WJZ sat down with both Mayor Brandon Scott and MCB Real Estate's David Bramble in 2023. The two said voting on ballot measures like this is one of many steps in this project.

"But I continue to insist this is a once and a generation opportunity to resent the trajectory of our city," said David Bramble, the owner of MCB Real Estate. 

Vignarajah and the residents hope their petition will be reviewed in a week or so – before it's printed on November's Ballot.