City Council opens land use dialogue
Members of the Annapolis City Council kicked off what are expected to be extensive and in-depth deliberations on the proposed draft of the Annapolis Comprehensive Plan, which maps the next two decades of land use in the city.
During a lengthy session Thursday, the council agreed Annapolis Ahead 2040 as it’s called, needs to be more accessible to city residents both in its language and its goals. The draft, which is more than 450 pages long in its current version, lays out a detailed vision for the future use of land, water and other natural resources in the city as well as parks, streets, open spaces, community facilities and more.
The plan also sets goals related to public water access; pedestrian, bicycle and transit connectivity, and affordable housing access and focuses on priorities that are related to the environment such as building infrastructure that will make the city resilient to sea-level rise and reducing its carbon footprint.
For nearly two and a half hours, council members asked questions and discussed concerns that ranged from specific items such as housing and its implementation of zoning to the readability of the plan.
Aldermen Rob Savidge and Ross Arnett and Alderwoman Karma O’Neill suggested simplifying the plan’s language to be less “legal-ese or public works-ese.”.
“I think it leads to misunderstandings by people,” said O’Neill, a Democrat from Ward 2.
Arnett recommended the city hire a professional writer to rewrite parts of the proposal.
“The guts are in there,” Arnett, a Ward 8 Democrat, said, “but it could be a lot simpler a lot more direct.”
One of the major focuses of the plan is implementing form-based zoning, which “provides specific guidance on the look of the buildings and their surrounding site, particularly as the building relates to the streetscape,” said Eric Leshinsky, chief of comprehensive planning for the city, who has spearheaded the comprehensive plan through a mix of community meetings and crowd sourcing over the last three years.
“Our current zoning, with the exception of a few places such as the Historic District, provides very minimal guidance on building and site standards which frequently creates an atmosphere of confu
sion about what new development should look like to properly blend with the city’s existing context,” he said. “Form-based zoning would help to clarify the standards for new development to better serve surrounding communities and provide a common language for how to evaluate new development.”
Another part of the plan is moving towards mixedused development, which is defined in the document as development that allows for multiple uses such as office, retail and residential space in a single building or property.
Several properties including the former Public Works facility, Waterworks Park and the former WNAV Radio site are recommended to be rezoned to become mixeduse development areas.
Alderman Dajuan Gay, a Democrat Ward 6, pointed to existing residential areas such as Tyler Avenue and asked how they can “maximize potential” in those areas where the lots are large where development is a possibly but “you don’t necessarily want to see those families priced out.”
“There’s certain incentives that come with any kind of zoning rules that we have,” said Alex Pline, a member of the Annapolis planning commission. “The rules that our zoning code creates determine what can built there. As you look at this plan and start to implement it you think about the zoning rules that you put in place that might incentivize the building of single family homes that are 900 square feet.”
Arnett said the plan needs to move from “aspirations to actionability,” pointing to the housing section as an example.
“One of the big features of this plan is equity and housing and when you go to the housing thing and the plan for equity is ‘make sure housing Annapolis is equitable.’ That’s an aspiration that’s not an implementation step. Tell me the three, four, seven things we have to do to make it equitable,” Arnett said.
That takes also looking at who gets incentivized and also, Arnett argued, looking at the income and housing ratio.
The city has already undertaken efforts to address some of the priorities that are outlined in the proposed plan. In September, the city revealed site plans for the City Dock revitalization project. In January, the Annapolis Planning Commission approved site plans for a City Dock park and a system of flood barriers around Ego Alley. It includes turning the pay-to-park area from Craig Street to Susan Campbell Park into a raised earthen berm meant to hold back water. The flood barrier system will extend from beyond the Naval Academy property, bordering Ego Alley and stopping at the proposed Donner Park.
Additionally, the city has already taken steps to make the waterways within the city more publicly accessible. In October, the Annapolis City Council unanimously approved a resolution that reinforces a court decision granting public access to the water at Wells Cove in Eastport.
Any major changes or anything “substantive” made to the plan need to be remanded back to the planning commission for a public hearing and deliberation, said Chris Jakubiak, director of Planning and Zoning for the city. The council has 90 days to work on the plan, including proposing amendments.
“We don’t want to see this rush through the process,” said Chris Jakubiak, director of planning and zoning for the city.
By the end of the work session, the council came to a consensus that they wanted to work through the draft as a unified body instead of dividing each of the plan’s sections into the council’s respective committees. Though a work session was not formally scheduled at Thursday’s meeting, Arnett said that he wants to schedule another work session “sooner rather than later,” reminding the council that budget season begins in April.