Residents of Poppleton left a federal court hearing in Baltimore on Wednesday feeling hopeful about their longtime fight to reverse neighborhood blight they blame on what they say is a failed, nearly 20-year-old agreement between the city and a developer.

Residents filed a civil rights lawsuit in August challenging the city’s taking of homes in the West Baltimore neighborhood through eminent domain as unconstitutional. In a hearing in U.S. District Court, attorneys for defendants, including the city, New York-based developer La Cité and its president, Dan Bythewood, and former Mayor Sheila Dixon, asked U.S. District Judge Adam B. Abelson to dismiss the case.

Abelson did not rule Wednesday on the defendants’ motions.

The lawsuit said the city’s 2006 agreement for La Cité to redevelop nearly 14 acres of the neighborhood — leading to the government seizing more than 500 homes — was unconstitutional because it never led to or intended to bring about a public benefit. Over 19 years, the developer completed just one apartment complex, the 262-unit CenterWest, out of an array of proposed mixed-use buildings across nearly 33 acres.

The Poppleton Now Community Association and six residents filed the civil rights case, alleging the city’s contract with the developer violated both federal and state law and should be voided.

Gathering with other residents and supporters after the hearing, Sonia Eaddy, a resident and plaintiff, described the lawsuit as a last resort.

“We were tired of being ignored,” said Eaddy, who said the community has worked on its own to revive the neighborhood with new investment. “We were tired of being disrespected and disregarded. … When time kept going and nothing was happening for us, we were going to have to take action of our own.”

Eaddy said residents are looking for city officials to “recognize that the harm happened to us” and “bring healing back to the community.”

Residents who still live in the neighborhood have legal standing because the razing of the rest of the community harmed their property values and quality of life, Thomas K. Prevas, an attorney for the plaintiffs, argued in court.

A 2006 land disposition and development agreement with La Cité prevents the city from moving forward with alternative development plans, he said, and La Cité has essentially told city officials, “We’re not going to develop it, and you can’t develop it either. … The developer is sitting on the property and has never done anything and never will do anything.”

Attorneys for the city and developer countered that the city had the right under eminent domain to seize property to redevelop a blighted community and to bring in a developer. They also argued that the plaintiffs did not lose their homes.

A lawyer for La Cité said drops in property values of homes outside the development area can’t be linked to the developer’s progress.

La Cité has said in court documents that it intends to push on with work, including senior apartments, commercial space and 200 single family homes.

“This is a realistic vision for a more prosperous Poppleton, and an achievable goal the developer has pledged thousands of hours and millions of dollars to pursue,” the company said in a response to the lawsuit, accusing the city of having “continually dragged its feet and failed to acquire title to all necessary properties for any given phase of the work.”

The developer argues that crime in Poppleton is down about 40% since the opening of the apartment complex in 2019.

City housing officials had announced nearly a year ago that they were trying to cut ties with La Cité, which officials said defaulted on its land disposition agreement after failing to prove it had financing in place for a senior apartment building long planned for the site.

In February, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Superior Court issued an order stripping La Cité of its management and development of the long-stalled Poppleton project. The court approved Arctaris Impact Investors’ contractual right to take over.

Arctaris Impact Investors, which targets projects in underserved communities, provided initial funding for a senior housing and retail project through a partnership with La Cité. The Massachusetts court order stemmed from a lawsuit Arctaris filed Aug. 5 in Massachusetts state court, seeking to recoup more than $13 million in initial funding. The lawsuit accused the developer of breaching a contract, reached in November 2022, in which La Cité took on responsibility for securing financing and reaching other milestones.

Construction was supposed to start early last year, but La Cité failed to obtain financing, a Massachusetts judge said in the ruling.

In a separate lawsuit filed in March, the City of Baltimore claimed that La Cité and Park Square Homes LLC owe $478,051.08 in unpaid water bills for the completed apartment complex at 101 N. Schroeder St. Court records show that La Cité’s most recent payment was made on Nov. 16, 2022, for $28,000.

The eminent domain lawsuit reviewed in court Wednesday outlined deteriorating conditions in what was once a historic Black neighborhood of numerous owner-occupied homes.

One plaintiff, Yvonne Gunn, lives in a house on West Fayette Street that her grandparents moved into in 1932, a home affected by condemnation but not itself condemned, the lawsuit said. She and her husband bought the home from an uncle in 1985.

“I have seen the community when it was beautiful, I’ve seen the downfall of the community,” Gunn said Wednesday. “Twenty years ago, I heard somebody was going to come and help redevelop Poppleton. I was overjoyed.”

According to the lawsuit, Gunn said she watched as some 70 to 80 neighboring three-story rowhouses similar to hers “were wiped off the face of the earth.”

“If my house was in Federal Hill or Canton, it would have always been worth a half-million dollars,” Gunn, a past president of the community association, said in the complaint,

But despite her family’s years of care and renovations and after displacement, demolition and disinvestment in Poppleton, her home was assessed at just $50,000, the lawsuit says.

After the hearing Wednesday, Gunn talked about her neighbors who were forced out through eminent domain, including one woman who couldn’t get settled and “had a nervous breakdown. That bothered me. …There were so many beautiful homes that should have been restored.”

“This developer has come in and wants to hand us his plans for our community,” she said. “We have residents who can think and have desires for our community.”

The idea to redevelop Poppleton came about because of the thinking in the early 2000s that revitalization required “heavy-handed government intervention” that could “repair blight caused by segregation, white flight and the end of industry by forced land acquisition and redevelopment,” the lawsuit says.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to find the land agreement void and order the developer to pay back any improper payments it made to the city, with proceeds used to invest in Poppleton. It seeks to force the city to restore to Poppleton at least the value taken from the neighborhood through eminent domain. Prevas estimates that value is at least $15 million.

The lawsuit also aims to have the city abolish “illegal land use practices that abuse civil rights and impose disparate treatment of minorities,” such as urban renewal plans and land banking, the practice of acquiring land for potential future community development use.

Have a news tip? Contact Lorraine Mirabella at lmirabella@baltsun .com, 410-332-6672 and @lmirabella on X.