A ten-year plan for housing, mobility, climate, and the things that make Annapolis worth caring about. Drafted with thousands of residents over 18 months.
In 2037, Annapolis is a city where working families can afford to live, where you can walk to what you need, where the harbor and the Bay are healthier than they were a decade ago, and where the history we cherish is shared by neighbors who finally feel they belong.
— Annapolis 2037 Comprehensive Plan · Chapter 1, page 12
Median home price has tripled in twenty years. Half the homes in the historic neighborhoods are owned by people who don't live in them year-round. The teachers, nurses, and firefighters who keep this city running can't afford to live in it.
Between 2005 and 2025, the median sale price of a single-family home in Annapolis rose from $328,000 to $912,000 — a 178% increase, more than double the rate of wage growth for the same period. Over the same window, the city added approximately 140 net new housing units, far below what household formation in the region would predict.
This is not an accident. It is the cumulative effect of zoning that locked most residential neighborhoods into single-family-only patterns set in the 1950s, a development review process that adds 18–24 months to even modest projects, and successful neighborhood opposition to denser construction even on transit-accessible corridors.
The result is a city where, of the 22,000 households, an estimated 9,400 are cost-burdened (spending more than 30% of income on housing), and where the children of long-time residents now commute in from Glen Burnie, Severna Park, and Crofton because nothing within the city limits is within reach.
This chapter proposes 42 actions to change the trajectory. Some are politically straightforward: permit accessory dwelling units by-right in all residential zones. Some will be hard: rezone three key corridors — West Street, Forest Drive, and the Inner West — to allow 3- and 4-story mixed-use development. All are necessary if we want to be the kind of city we say we are.
Once adopted, the Comp Plan is binding on the city — every zoning decision, every CIP project, every grant application must be consistent with it. Maryland law requires every municipality to adopt one and update it every ten years.
18 months of community input, working groups, technical analysis.
Public draft released v3.2. Available online and at 4 library branches.
Open now through July 31. Three formal hearings scheduled.
Commission reviews comments, votes to recommend to Council.
City Council votes on final Plan. Becomes binding city policy.