Residents of Poppleton are still trying to kick a developer out of their neighborhood and end one of Baltimore’s most controversial land deals.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court in Virginia heard their appeal of a 2024 lawsuit against the developer, the city and several current and former officials. A federal judge dismissed that case in June.

Baltimore displaced more than 100 households in the West Baltimore neighborhood as part of its 2006 deal with New York-based La Cité, which planned to build a dense, upscale neighborhood evocative of Manhattan. Two decades later, La Cité has completed only a single apartment complex made up of two buildings, about 8% of what La Cité and its president, Dan Bythewood Jr., intended.

At the heart of the case is eminent domain — the power of the government to take private property when it is for the good of the public — and who can challenge this power.

Former Poppleton residents and their families have described the displacement caused by eminent domain as unnecessary and traumatic. But this lawsuit was filed by six residents who still live in the neighborhood, adjacent to the long-stalled development.

The residents claim that the demolition of homes and the creation of vacant land in Poppleton has damaged their property values, and that the use of eminent domain was unconstitutional.

They filed suit in August 2024, citing reporting from The Baltimore Banner that probed the origins of La Cité’s deal with the city.

The Banner found that in 2005 Baltimore officials reversed a decision to hire an established firm to redevelop Poppleton. Instead, they picked La Cité — a relatively inexperienced firm with no track record of large projects — despite multiple warnings from residents and city employees.

The lawsuit said this decision was motivated by political favoritism, noting that as city officials were deliberating, Essence Magazine brought then-City Council President Sheila Dixon to New York for a makeover featured in the magazine. Essence’s then-editorial director, Susan Taylor, is a partner at La Cité.

Dixon has denied this, calling the lawsuit frivolous.

One of the plaintiffs, Sonia Eaddy, lived in the original 13.8-acre development footprint. But after she refused to give up her home for years, the city negotiated with La Cité to protect her home in 2022, making her family the only household to avoid displacement.

According to La Cité, because Eaddy wasn’t displaced, she doesn’t have standing to sue, and neither do her neighbors. Attorneys for the firm made a similar argument last year before a federal judge in Baltimore.

Judge Adam Ableson dismissed the case, which led to Wednesday’s appellate hearing before a three-judge panel.

It seemed clear to Judge Julius Richardson that if someone’s property value decreases, they have been injured. But ruling that a third-party property owner can file a lawsuit against the government on these grounds could open up a can of worms, he said, allowing all sorts of litigation from aggrieved property owners.

“Bad government is not unconstitutional,” Richardson said.

Tom Prevas, the attorney for the residents of Poppleton, acknowledged that the argument was relatively unique, but he pointed to a 1978 case involving residents who lived near a nuclear power plant in North Carolina.

After Congress rolled back certain regulations on the power plants, the homeowners sued, challenging the constitutionality of the law. They had standing because their property values had been damaged, Prevas said, and the same logic should apply in Poppleton.

Anthony Phillips, attorney for La Cité, disagreed. He said this is a simple case where a government made a lawful contract with a developer. These residents did not have their property taken, Phillips said, and “no one has a constitutional right in the value of their home.”

Judge Pamela Harris probed multiple points made by both the plaintiffs and the defendants, but at the end of the hearing, she wondered aloud why one of the residents displaced from Poppleton didn’t bring this suit.

“It just seems like the wrong people are suing here,” Harris said.

It could be weeks or months before the appeals court issues an opinion, potentially sending the case back to the District Court in Baltimore. If the appeal is dismissed, the residents would have just one legal avenue left: asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case.