A Cleaner, Greener Baltimore

A Cleaner Baltimore

• Development of a dynamic new Public Awareness Campaign, in partnership with Baltimore Community Foundation, to promote all to take responsibility for keeping our city clean.
• Initiation of a Comprehensive Clean/Green Survey of community, business and environmental groups to document activities underway and to help improve communication and coordination between the City and these organizations.
• Launch of the Clean and Green Block Action Plan Program, where citizens can phone into our 311 system or click on a web site and request specific City assistance from the Bureau of Solid Waste and the Dept. of Recreation and Parks in cleaning chronic trash problem areas and greening vacant lots and other spaces.
• Re-establishment of the Office of Recycling and a soon-to-be issued Executive Order mandating Paper Recycling in all City buildings.
• Introduction of the Eviction Chattel Legislation to keep this debris off of City streets and provide tenants with a reasonable right to reclaim their property.
• Implementation of aggressive Deep Cleaning Operations targeted at chronically littered neighborhoods.
• Improvement of sanitation conditions at Bus Stops and along Gateways across the City with the addition of 750 new trash cans and dedicated crews to empty them.
• Reorganization of Sanitation Code Enforcement staff (to Housing) and Cleaning and Boarding crews (to DPW) for improved efficiency and productivity.
• Increased Customer Service Training for trash collection crews and a stronger focus on proper job performance and responsiveness to complaints.
• Reduced Response Times for lot and alley cleaning complaints (down from 21 to 14 days), for boarding of vacant houses (down from 21 to 7 days) and for graffiti removal.
• Increase of 320 miles of Street Sweeping per week.
• Development of a Clean Ambassador Program, similar to the Downtown Partnership's successful program, for each retail corridor in the city.
• Improved coordination with CSX Corp. to target chronic litter and dumping problems along highly visible railway lines and properties.
• Installation of additional Trash Interceptors at Inner Harbor and Middle Branch storm water outfalls this summer.
• Signing of Alley Gating Legislation to allow residents the ability to gate and green their alleys to prevent dumping and beautify these neighborhood spaces.

A Greener Baltimore

• Release of the TreeBaltimore Urban Forestry Management Plan that calls for doubling our city's tree canopy over 30 years to achieve air and water quality benefits and to provide more wildlife habitat.
• Doubling the number of street trees we plant in the city this year.
• Giving away 1000 trees for free for residents to plant on their own properties.
• Enhancing our Gateways with new median plantings and, along a major stretch of Edmondson Ave., replacing concrete medians with lush new planting beds.
• Sprucing up all city buildings and yards with new and revived landscaping, flower beds and container plantings.
• Creating a new zoning category for park land and open space, to further protect our green assets in the city.
• Funding the Vacant Lot Greening Program in partnership with Bon Secours hospital to plant over 300 trees on Baltimore’s vacant lots.
• Providing Summer Greening Jobs to City Youth to clean and beautify our parks and trails, in partnership with organizations like Parks and People Foundation and Johnson Controls.

A More Sustainable Baltimore

• Establishing an Office of Sustainability, to be housed in the Department of Planning. Among other duties like tracking key indicators, developing a public education and performing research, this Office will be charged with developing a Citywide Sustainability Plan that addresses several core issues:
• Resource conversation and recycling;
• Energy policies and practices;
• Air quality;
• Water quality;
• Public Health & Environmental Justice;
• Alternative Transportation modes;
• Green buildings and development practices.
• Establishing a Sustainability Advisory Committee consisting of a cross section of community, business and environmental stakeholders. The Sustainability Plan will be adopted by the Planning Commission and become part of the City Comprehensive Plan.
• Establishing an Environmental Sub-cabinet composed of key agency heads that will meet regularly to develop policy and coordinate interagency initiatives.
• Addressing Water Quality at the regional level by implementing the City-County Watershed Memorandum of Understanding.
• Developing the city's first true Bicycle Master Plan.
• Creating the Middle Branch Master Plan, Baltimore's "other" harbor, to specifically integrate "green development practices" into the transformation of these former industrial sites into a healthy mix of housing, retail and parks and open space.
• Releasing the BRACtion Plan to capture a share of the growth in jobs and households resulting from the BRAC initiative, where thousands of families will move to the region to follow the jobs to be created at Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground.
• Sustaining and developing Partnerships to help achieve the Clean & Green vision with organizations like the Parks and People Foundation, Living Classrooms Foundation, our watershed associations for Baltimore Harbor, Gwynns Falls, Jones Falls and Herring Run, and the hundreds of community organizations who participate in events like our Spring Clean-up.