Annapolis wants more housing. Residents want to preserve what’s already there.

An effort to simplify the zoning code in Annapolis is drawing opposition from some residents who say the planning department’s latest proposals will change the character of downtown’s historic district.

City planning officials shared recommendations Monday night with the City Council that call for redesignating parts of Duke of Gloucester Street to allow for more multifamily and commercial uses for certain properties adjacent to Main Street.

The proposal from the city’s Department of Planning, Zoning and Building would eliminate two of the city’s zoning districts, one of which has restricted parts of historic downtown Annapolis to single-family homes for decades.

The goal is to make the city’s zoning more efficient and to open the door to more affordable housing options, which are in short supply in the city and Anne Arundel County.

“Downtown for centuries was teeming with housing options and we’ve gradually shrunk those, particularly with our zoning restrictions,” Eric Leshinsky, the city’s chief of comprehensive planning, told council members. “We create a less and less authentic version of our former self because none of the people who actually work here live here.”

Roughly two dozen residents attended the meeting to speak out against the proposal.

“This proposal runs counter to what should be implemented for preservation by the city,” said Karen Brown, who leads Historic Annapolis, which works to preserve the city.

Downtown Annapolis is a nationally recognized historic district with a character that attracts residents to the city, Brown said.

“This would inevitably alter that character,” she said.

Brown and the other residents argued that eliminating the city’s single-family zoning would encourage developers to carve up properties for more housing, create more traffic on the city’s narrow roads, and threaten historic tax credits used to preserve homes.

Catherine Boynton said it would be “borderline negligent” for the city to approve higher-density housing with the current infrastructure “crumbling,” while another Annapolitan, Thomas Weimer, said developers would be the only winners from these changes.

The difference in perspectives speaks to the increasingly disparate visions for the future of Annapolis and what attracts people to the city.

The proposal requires a council member to introduce legislation — which has not yet happened — to change the city’s zoning code.

The department’s suggestions came after six months of research by the city’s zoning and planning staff and were introduced as Phase 2 of the city’s 2024 Zoning Unlocked initiative. The effort aims to better align the city’s zoning with Anne Arundel County’s goals of increasing access to housing while protecting neighborhood assets, such as the environment.

At Monday night’s meeting, Leshinsky explained that the current code is complicated to sort through and in some cases no longer relevant. There are more zoning districts in Annapolis than in Baltimore, despite Charm City’s far larger population spread across 11 times the land.

Some long-vacant properties once home to small office buildings near Main Street could be activated if different types of commercial uses are allowed, Leshinsky said. Plus about a third of the homes in the special single-family zoning district are out of compliance with their zoning — meaning some of these homes have already been split into multifamily homes, he said.

Ward 5 Alderman Brooks Schandelmeier appeared to support the proposal and referred to the zoning changes as an urgent matter to be addressed due to the countywide shortage of housing and the many parcels that are not aligned with the city code.

“If there’s fire, earthquake, whatever that destroys it, we could not rebuild our downtown as it looks now,” he said.

Ward 8 Alderman Frank Thorp showed interest in Leshinsky’s proposal to use the city’s open-space zoning designation to ensure that parks and conservation areas of more than two acres are not redeveloped in the future.

“It caused my heart to stop for a second when I heard that if the city decided to put houses on Truxtun Park they could,” he said, describing the park as a “crown jewel” of Annapolis.

But many residents felt the goals of the zoning changes appeared unclear.

Tom Krieck, who leads a residents association in Ward 1, which contains the historic downtown, opposed the suggestions out of concern that the planners were not being open about their intentions. He said the changes were mischaracterized by Leshinsky and his team as “minor tweaks.”

In mid-August, Krieck gathered 120 people for a community meeting about the proposed changes. Despite longtime residents’ disapproval of the proposal, Leshinsky said it did not undergo any major changes.

Kathleen McDermott, who spoke against the changes in August and at Monday’s meeting, said that it felt as though the proposal was made by people who’d never set foot in Annapolis and didn’t understand how the city worked.

“It’s out of touch,” she said, adding that single-family homes are valuable assets to the city and “should not be shamed.”

McDermott also established the Annapolis Parking Alliance, which has opposed the changes out of concern that they will cause more traffic.

“Most people can’t even find a space to park their car here,” she said, adding that she’s in favor of more housing options but doesn’t understand why changes need to be made to the city’s historic center.

Some of the residents at the August meeting purchased their homes in the historic downtown decades ago and went so far as to jokingly bicker over who’d lived there the longest.

Keith Cyphers, who rented downtown for eight years before moving out of the city, said at that meeting that it was wonderful that so many people had the opportunity to purchase their homes for less than they’re currently worth and now want to preserve the city and keep building a life there.

“But if you are a younger person who couldn’t buy a house in 1990 because you were 10 years old,” he said, “it’s like impossible.”