The Baltimore City Council approved a plan Monday night to tax vacant and abandoned homes at a higher rate, sending the legislation to Mayor Brandon Scott for approval.

The plan, which received the unanimous co-sponsorship of the council, would set the tax rate for vacant and abandoned homes at three times the usual rate (6.744 percent per $100 of assessed value) in its first year. The rate would increase up to four times the standard rate each subsequent tax year (8.992% per $100 of assessed value).

The fee structure could take effect as soon as July 2026. Scott is expected to sign the legislation.

The goal, said Councilwoman Odette Ramos, would be for liens on vacant properties to become so high that they could benefit from the legal procedure for seizure in remallowing the city to take possession of the houses left intact.

The bill could potentially affect more than 10,000 abandoned properties over time, according to Department of Finance data, and will not initially include vacant land.

Long seen as a potential tool to reduce vacant buildings in Baltimore, the tax rate proposal was years in the making. State representatives in the Baltimore delegation in Annapolis have tried unsuccessfully to pass enabling legislation in every session of the General Assembly from 2021 to 2023, after a previous failed attempt in 2010.

Eventually, in 2024, authorizing legislation passed both the House of Delegates and the State Senate, and was signed into law by Governor Wes Moore, giving Maryland’s 23 counties and Baltimore the power to tax their vacant positions.

On Monday, the City Council voted 11-0 in favor of the tax rate proposal. Five members of the corps were absent. Council President Nick Mosby said the legislation would allow the city to attack the decades-old vacancies problem on a “more holistic level.”

“It puts Baltimore in a different perspective in terms of dealing with vacancies,” he said.

During a Ways and Means Committee meeting Last month, the bill received unanimous support from members in attendance, but some expressed concerns about unintended consequences. Councilman Isaac “Yitzy” Schleifer said delays in approvals from the Department of Housing and Community Development could cause some developers to receive higher taxes during the new rate structure, through no fault of their own.

Hallie Miller of the Baltimore Banner contributed to this article.