A program that will sell city-owned vacant homes for $1 was approved Wednesday by the Baltimore Board of Estimates over objections from City Council President Nick Mosby who said the policy “deeply concerned” him.

The new pricing structure, which was approved by a vote of 4-1, would sell a small group of city-owned homes listed on the Buy Into Bmore website for rates starting at $1.

Mosby voted against the item. The Democratic council president proposed his own program to offer houses for $1 in 2021, but it stalled in committee in 2022.

Mosby pushed for a deferral of the new policy during the board’s previous meeting and maintained his objections Wednesday, arguing Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration had not done enough to spell out in writing guardrails to ensure city residents are given first rights to buy properties and not forced out when neighborhoods improve.

Mosby also said he wanted written protections to ensure sales would fit into a “whole block” approach of development that tackles vacancy for an entire area rather than a single property.

“If affordability and affordable home ownership and equity and all of the nice words we like to use are really at the core competency as it relates to property disposition, this is a really bad policy,” Mosby said. “This is a bad policy because it doesn’t protect or prioritize the rights of folks in these communities.”

City housing officials have insisted there are guardrails in place, including a 90-day window in which city residents will be given priority to buy properties if they want to renovate them and use them as their primary residence. The Department of Housing and Community Development also plans to offer a form for residents to fill out if they are interested in buying any vacant property, city-owned or otherwise. Alice Kennedy, the city’s housing commissioner, said the city will work with interested residents to prepare them financially to buy the house.

Kennedy said Wednesday that the pricing policy is part of the city’s property disposition strategy. There are other programs to help residents and developers financially when they buy properties to rehab.

“The affordability part comes in on the money side,” she said. “This is the disposition side.”

Vacant homes are a widespread problem in Baltimore, where more than 13,000 sit unoccupied. The new price structure, however, would apply to very few of those homes. Fewer than 1,000 of the city’s total vacant properties are city-owned. And not all of those are listed on the Buy Into Bmore website. City officials said Tuesday that just over 200 are currently in the program. Numerous others that could fit into existing redevelopment efforts in particular neighborhoods have been set aside, Kennedy told the board.

City housing officials told The Baltimore Sun that the new pricing structure will apply to vacant homes and lots in city neighborhoods with the most “stressed” housing markets, featuring lower sales prices, and higher rates of foreclosure and vacancy. For the most part, those lie in East and West Baltimore.

The $1 price point would be available only for individual buyers and community land trusts. Developers would have to pay $3,000, and so would large nonprofits with 51 or more employees. Nonprofits with fewer employees could pay $1,000.

The policy also would cover vacant lots, which would range in price from a dollar to $1,000, based on a similar structure.

The Scott administration’s plan, as well as Mosby’s former plan, evoke the city’s “dollar house” program of the 1970s, which offered homes for a dollar to residents willing to fix them up and live in them. That program included low-interest rate renovation loans for buyers. Scott’s approach does not.

Kennedy argued previously that the pricing is just one piece of a larger plan to deal with the thousands of vacant homes and lots in the city. Late last year, Scott unveiled a $3 billion plan that calls for a mix of public and private funding to be spent over 15 years to touch 35,000 homes. Included in that plan are down payment and closing cost assistance.

Nneka N’namdi, a Baltimore housing advocate, told the spending board Wednesday that she would support the fixed pricing policy if conditions are put in place that prioritize existing residents and bar slumlords and land speculators from participating. The city also needs to offer financial assistance to buyers to help them rehabilitate properties, she said.

“We support this model because it is simple. It is clear. It is transparent,” she said. “But we need it to be equitable.”

In response to N’namdi, Scott said the city will develop an anti-displacement and equity policy and create a public-facing tracking tool to publicize “whole block” development. Scott, a Democrat, also said quarterly reports will be made to the city council on the demographics of buyers, and an annual review will be conducted on the program’s effectiveness.

Mosby argued N’namdi’s demands were not being met by the city’s current policies that govern the $1 sales.

“We can’t afford — whether it’s 200 properties, 300 properties, 500 properties — not to ensure that the policy is in place,” he said.