SUN: Mayor Scott signed 29 bills this week. Here’s what will change in Baltimore.

BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Baltimore is making some of its biggest policy bets in years on how the city grows, redevelops vacant properties, and raises tax revenue, with Mayor Brandon Scott signing a package of 29 bills that will shape everything from future development projects to the fate of abandoned buildings.

Among the most significant changes, owners of vacant and abandoned properties will eventually face tax rates four times higher than the standard city rate in an effort to push more buildings back into productive use. The package of bills also formally enacts previously announced changes to homeowner property taxes, places a one-year moratorium on new data centers, and bans private detention centers within city limits.

Taken together, the measures signal how city leaders want Baltimore to evolve: discouraging long-term vacancy, steering certain types of development away from neighborhoods and continuing a broader strategy to reduce the city’s high property tax burden while generating revenue elsewhere.

While several of the measures had been debated publicly for months, the bill package makes them official and provides one of the clearest snapshots yet of the priorities established for redevelopment, taxation and growth.

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