I hope you enjoyed my 2025 Ignite Annapolis talk “Need or Greed” about the competing priorities in the housing market as to whether housing is considered a fundamental human need (so we want costs to go down) or as an investment product (so we want values to go up). Unfortunately, you can’t really have it both ways. This is the current housing crisis we find ourselves in.… Read More Ignite Annapolis! (2025)
Revisiting the Market House five years later. It’s a flourishing third place downtown and this is why.… Read More Market House is Flourishing
Annapolis is going to decide on Monday whether to enter into a Public Private Partnership (P3) to rebuild the Hillman Parking Garage downtown and do the City Dock Project. I submitted my thoughts on the subject as written testimony to the City Council.… Read More Hillman Garage and City Dock P3
A recent project that came before the Annapolis Planning Commission was made very challenging by the planning dogma that arose in the mass suburbanization era of the last half of the 20th century. The choices made 40-50 years ago to the development pattern in Annapolis that seemed like the next great thing at the time required us to choose the least bad option. What can we learn from that?… Read More Dealing With The Planning Dogma Of The Past
The land use and mobility goals of the Parole Town Center Master Plan are incoherent and there needs to be real change if we want the area to be more than an inside out mall that you have to drive to.… Read More Can Parole Ever Be Anything But An Inside Out Mall?
In June, I had a free ranging discussion with Scott MacMullan about development, Strong Towns, and biking and the incentives that drive them on his ‘Annapolis Podcast’. I really enjoy these kinds of conversations.… Read More Alex Pline on Pricey Luxury Condos, Parking Lots, and Cycling in Annapolis
As the person who is responsible for initiating the requirement 22 in the Central Park findings, it is important for me to explain the rationale for my (I do not speak for the rest of the Planning Commission) behind it. Read on to see why I think connections between neighborhoods are important!… Read More Neighborhood Connections
I hope you enjoyed my Ignite Annapolis talk “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got”. This post has supplemental information and background for the talk.… Read More Ignite Annapolis! (2019)
The Forest Drive/Eastport Sector Study takes a small step in the right direction towards a more satisfying future. It is not a plan but it is a hope, a strategic hope. And one must hope and envision in order to get anywhere.… Read More Forest Drive/Eastport study offers hope for better walkability
The Forest Drive Sector Study schizophrenic. Should the area be a way to move people in and out or should it be a people oriented place? Sadly, it tries to be both and does neither.… Read More Forest Drive/Eastport Sector Study
Team Pline 