Community Invited to Re-imagine 5837-5841 York Road
The Belvedere Improvement Association is planning a series of three visioning sessions this spring to gather input for the future of the long-vacant lot on York Road known as the “old diner site,” located at 5837-5841 York Road.
The BIA has “no agenda about what it gets used for,” said Anna Evans-Goldstein, the group’s president. Options include “anything from keeping it as a parking lot [to] turning it into a farm or a park or a green space.”
The ultimate use of the site is likely to be the product of a “multi-decade” process, she said. “All of the things along that spectrum are going to take various amounts of money and work and time.”
The neighborhood association acquired the land in January thanks to a capital grant that was pursued by state Sen. Mary L. Washington, the Democrat who represents District 43. The property is just north of Staples and a few hundred feet south of Belvedere Square.
The BIA sees the purchase as a “game-changer” for the community. “We have a long history of navigating the balances of residential and commercial interests,” Evans-Goldstein said. But the neighborhood has often been at a disadvantage.
Commercial activity “is one of the big draws of living in this neighborhood. But it’s also been a struggle in the past,” she said. “Not all development interests care about what the people who live around it want to see happen in the area.”
For most of its history, the BIA has been in a position of “combating bad actors who are not talking to us,” she said. “In this case we had kind of a unique and singular opportunity to be on the offensive and actually own a piece of land.”
The neighborhood is looking forward to “having our voice count, particularly along our section of the corridor, which is slated to become a transformational project in the coming decade,” Evans-Goldstein said.
At the same time, the scope of the project is “daunting,” she said. “It’s going to be a lot of work.” Fortunately “the neighborhood has got a lot of really great people that put in a lot of work.”
She said her group is working with the Neighborhood Design Center to help with the planning process. NDC, which has an office on West North Avenue, describes its mission as “building equity through community-led design.” Its staff and volunteers include “architects, urban planners, social designers, artists [and] community organizers,” according to its website.
The visioning process is expected to result in an “array of proposals, what we could do in the short term, what we could do in the long term,” Evans-Goldstein said. Ideas that have been kicked around include a farmers market stand and using shipping containers for pop-up stores.
In reaching a decision about the future of the site, the BIA plans to follow some general principles, starting with the idea that “people that are most impacted should have the most say.” For this reason, the first visioning session, which will be online, will be limited to members of BIA, which has about 550 households in its catchment area.
In general the BIA will look toward uses that serve the community and help it thrive. It will not pursue profit-making options unless they would lead to clear benefits for the neighborhood.
“We’re not trying to build something to make money off unless it goes back to the neighborhood in a very concrete way,” Evans-Goldstein said.
According to Zillow, the property measures 7,000 square feet and is zoned C-2, which would theoretically allow for an array of uses, including up to 120 apartments. But the site has been designated a planned unit development (PUD), which limits land use options.
Evans-Goldstein said the neighborhood plans to keep those restrictions in place as long as they help the community maintain control.
She is also working with the Community Development Clinic at the University of Baltimore’s law school to see if additional mechanisms are available to protect the neighborhood’s long-term interests. “We are looking for some sort of protection so that in the future, no matter who owns it, it has to be in service to the neighborhood.”
While its first priority is serving its members, the BIA is looking for input from “anybody who has a stake in the area,” including residents of nearby neighborhoods, owners of local businesses and workers with jobs in the neighborhood.
The open visioning sessions will be April 3 and May 1. The April one will be held at the Govans Public Library. The site of the May session will depend on whether the library, which is due for an HVAC overhaul, remains open at that time.
The property, which is in the 5800 block of York Road, is currently used for parking by patrons of the Senator Theatre and other local businesses. But that usage may soon end due to liability issues.
The “old diner site” acquired its nickname because it served for roughly a decade as the resting ground for a vintage diner that had been acquired by Tom Kiefaber, the former owner of the Senator.
Kiefaber took great pride that Barry Levinson’s film Diner premiered at his movie house in 1982. His hope was to incorporate the old structure into a 150-seat diner on the property, which is across the street from the Senator
Those plans never came to fruition. The diner, which had been covered in shrink-wrap, was removed in 2002.