Supreme Court denies petition from Poppleton residents

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition to hear the case of the failed redevelopment of a West Baltimore neighborhood, ending a two-year legal fight.

The neighborhood association of Poppleton and six residents sued New York-based La Cité Development and others in 2024, two decades after the developer said it would remake the neighborhood into what would resemble a slice of Manhattan. The eminent domain case argued that the residents who still live in Poppleton have suffered from the destruction of their neighborhood, with limited rebuilding.

Today, much of the neighborhood is vacant land owned by the city but controlled by La Cité, which has completed only a two-building apartment complex on North Schroeder Street.

A long-promised grocery store never opened at the complex. Earlier this year, state lawmakers redirected a $500,000 grant for Poppleton’s grocery store to Open Works Baltimore, a nonprofit for makerspace that is planning a second location in West Baltimore.

The Poppleton residents filed their lawsuit in federal court in 2024, then appealed their loss to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. A panel of judges ruled that the residents had been harmed and that they had standing to file the lawsuit. But they said there was no legal recourse for the plaintiffs because their homes had never been taken.

This year, the residents filed a petition to the Supreme Court, which only accepts a fraction of petitions filed each year.

Sonia Eaddy, the president of Poppleton Now and one of the plaintiffs, knew that their lawsuit was unique and faced long odds, but she believed it was worth pursuing. In an interview last week, she said that it’s the current residents of Poppleton — and their property values — who are suffering from this redevelopment flop.

This case was always bigger than the fight over Poppleton, Eaddy said; it was about exposing the ways cities use eminent domain to benefit private developers at the expense of residents.

“This case is bringing the awareness,” she said.

Tom Prevas, the Baltimore attorney who represented the Poppleton residents pro bono, said last week that he felt morally compelled to push the case to Supreme Court, even if it was unlikely to be heard.

“They’re getting a really raw deal,” Prevas said of the neighborhood. “They have gotten a raw deal, and they continue to get a raw deal. And people should be helping them more than they are.”