Council committee reviews Baltimore’s INREM acquisition strategy as city ramps up filings

Baltimore City Hall — Baltimore officials on Tuesday outlined the city’s acquisition strategy for vacant properties and gave an update on in rem (INREM) foreclosure filings, saying the city has ramped staffing and systems but needs additional legal and court capacity and state funding to reach an internal goal of 200 filings per month.

The oversight hearing, convened by Committee Chair James Torrance and Vice Chair Councilwoman Ramos, focused on how the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) uses negotiated purchase, donation, condemnation and tax-lien foreclosure — including judicial INREM foreclosure — to acquire vacant buildings and lots for reuse. Councilwoman Ramos said the city’s public dashboard currently lists “12,378 vacant and abandoned properties,” and emphasized the committee’s interest in transparency and resources to scale filings.

Housing Commissioner Alice Kennedy told the committee the INREM work “is central to our broader vacancy reduction strategy” and described a strategy that pairs parcel- and block-level planning with community partners to achieve “whole-block” outcomes. Kennedy and DHCD staff showed maps tying high VBN (vacant, blighted and neglected) density to historically disinvested neighborhoods and described a pipeline of acquisitions that includes donations, negotiated sales, condemnation and INREM filings.

DHCD described recent changes to increase filing capacity: the department’s…