Charles Village, Baltimore
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Charles Village is a neighborhood located in the north-central area of Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It is a middle-class area with many single-family homes that is in proximity to many of Baltimore's urban amenities. The area was first developed as a streetcar suburb in the early 20th century, and was then known as Peabody Heights; the moniker Charles Village, derived from Charles St., the area's major north-south corridor, was coined in the 1970s as the beginning of a process of conceptually grouping a large and somewhat heterogeneous area.
Charles Village in a strict sense consists of the area immediately to the east and south of the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus. However, smaller neighborhoods to the east and south of this area — including Abell, Harwood, and Old Goucher — are considered by residents and other Baltimoreans to be part of Greater Charles Village. The Charles Village Community Benefits District (CVCBD) covers a hundred-block area generally bounded by 33rd Street to the north, Greenmount Avenue to the east, 25th Street (east of Guilford) and 20th Street (west of Guilford) to the south, and Johns Hopkins and Howard Street to the west. This area contains over 14,000 people and 700 businesses. The Charles Village Community Benefits District Management Authority (CVCBDMA) is a public entity that provides services within the CVCBD.
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[edit] Residents
One of the Charles Village's defining features is its proximity to Johns Hopkins' main undergraduate campus, and many university staff and students live in the neighborhood, particularly in the areas immediately adjacent to the campus. Perhaps as a result, Charles Village has for the past several decades attracted a large population of artists, bohemians, and kindred spirits — its residents being described as "hippies and hipsters" by some observers. The area also has a reputation for being one of the more racially diverse neighborhoods in a city that was largely segregated for decades. The neighborhood in general becomes more affluent as you travel from south to north and from east to west.
[edit] Housing stock
Though there are the occasional apartment buildings, much of Charles Village's housing stock consists of two- and three-story rowhouses built in the early 20th century. Much of the houses have been well maintained and, along with the rest of the city, the neighborhood has seen a boom in real estate prices in the first half of the 2000s. Some of the larger rowhouses have been converted into multi-unit apartment houses in more recent decades.
[edit] Amenities and future development
The neighborhood includes several small commercial districts, and is within walking distance to the well-attended Waverly farmer's market. However, unlike many of the trendier neighborhoods in the city, there are few large-scale retail areas. That is in the process of changing, however, as two blocks of St. Paul Street in the northern part of the neighborhood are being completely redeveloped. By the time the project is complete in 2007, a former stretch of rowhouses and small apartment buildings will be replaced by a large dorm for Hopkins students and multi-story condominiums, all of which will contain ground-floor retail. Some in the neighborhood are excited about the coming additions to a somewhat sleepy area, while others are trepidatious of the change. On October 21, 2006, the first phase of the new development was completed: a Barnes & Noble bookstore opened as an anchor to the retail space of the dorm project. It now serves both as the Johns Hopkins student bookstore and as a standard retail outlet for residents of North Baltimore City. The Barnes and Noble bookstore has two floors: the first floor consists mainly of general books, magazines, Hopkins apparel, and a Starbucks coffee shop, while the second floor consists of Hopkins textbooks, with some generic school supplies and computer supplies mixed in.
[edit] The Benefits District
The Charles Village Community Benefits District (CVCBD) is a special taxing district, one of only two in the city, the other being the Midtown Benefits District in Mount Vernon. Property owners in the district pay 12 cents per $100 of assessed value over and above city taxes to support the district.
The CVCBD was formed in 1994 through the efforts of the Charles Village Civic Association (CVCA), led by its then-president Ed Hargadon; the South Charles Village Business Association, led at the time by the CEO of Whitman Requardt & Associates, Tom Shafer; and the Greater Homewood Community Corporation (GHCC), whose executive director was former CVCA president Sandra Sparks. Shafer had been spurred into action by the 1992 murder of an employee in the company parking lot. He had pursued Benefits District legislation in the 1993 General Assembly without success, enjoying community support from GHCC but not from the CVCA. CVCA's decision to come on board in 1994 made it possible to pass the enabling legislation in the 1994 Maryland General Assembly, the City Council ordinance later that summer, and then a neighborhood referendum in October of that year. In the referendum, which was conducted using mail-in ballots by the Baltimore City Board of Elections, all registered voters and property owners were eligible to vote, and about 1,500 did so, and about two-thirds voted for the creation of the Benefits District.
Two specific services provided by the CVCBDMA are security patrols and sanitation services carried out by its uniformed, in-house staff. Also, in the words of the district's Web site, "The CVCBD has a full-time staff that organizes promotional and community-based activities through community building and economic development." Most of the activities other than safety and sanitation are financed through an associated 501(c)3 nonprofit, the Charles Village Community Foundation, which raises several hundred thousand dollars a year in grants to finance community development projects such as housing code enforcement, low-interest loans for residential and commercial revitalization, Painted Ladies contests, facade improvement matching grants, neighborhood festivals, security cameras, and others that are detailed on the CVCBDMA website.
Some vocal residents feel that the district doesn't do enough or does the wrong things. For example, critics argue that security patrols are rarely seen around Charles Village except for the business corridor along Greenmount Avenue. Critics also say that the sanitation services and security services claimed by the CVCBDMA, when they actually occur, are sometimes provided by Baltimore City departments instead. CVCBDMA defenders respond that the critics have unreasonable expectations of what can be done with limited funds.
In 2003 in the 14th City Council district, a candidate running for the Baltimore City Council calling for the CVCBD's outright abolition received less than a hundred votes. In the same year in the 12th City Council district, where two incumbents were thrown together by redistricting, the incumbent who had supported CVCBD reauthorization that year, Bernard "Jack" Young, defeated the anti-CVCBD incumbent, Pamela Carter, by a margin of 2-1, including in the Charles Village precincts of the district. During the 2006 elections for at-large members of the CVCBDMA Board of Directors (aka "quad reps"), a critic defeated an incumbent member, winning over 60 percent of the vote. In the same election, the president of the Board of Directors ran for re-election and was challenged by a critic. The president retained his seat by a margin of one vote.
The Management Authority board claims it is responsive to citizen concerns since it is composed primarily of Charles Villagers elected directly by the residents and by the four area community associations. In 2006 the CVCBDMA was reauthorized by the Baltimore City Council through 2010.
[edit] Transportation
MTA Maryland's #11 and #3 buses are the two major mass transportation options in Charles Village, while the #8 runs down Greenmount Avenue, just to the East of the neighborhood. The #61 and #64 buses, which are weekday-only buses intended primarily for commuters, also travel through the area. Charles Village is not served by either of Baltimore's rapid transit systems.
Charles and Saint Paul Streets, two one-way streets that together comprise one of central Baltimore's main north-south corridors, pass through the middle of Charles Village; two other major corridors, Howard Street and Greenmount Avenue, bound the neighborhood on the west and east, respectively. The area is also only a short drive from the Jones Falls Expressway (I-83).
[edit] Demographics
As of the censusGR2 of 2000, there were 7,925 people residing in the neighborhood. The racial makeup of Charles Village was 58.9% White, 22.5% African American, 0.3% Native American, 13.6% Asian, 1.3% from other races, and 3.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.7% of the population. 12.9% of occupied housing units were owner-occuped. 16.3% of housing units were vacant.
62.8% of the population were employed, 2.5% were unemployed, and 34.7% were not in the labor force. The median household income was $20,324. About 20.2% of families and 31.7% of the population were below the poverty line.
