For decades, people trying to build, renovate, or open a business in Havre de Grace have run into a wall of rules — some outdated, some stricter than state law requires, and some that simply conflict with each other.
City leaders got their first look Monday night at a plan to change that.
Why it matters: Mayor William Martin told the council the city’s reputation for being hard to do business in did not happen by accident. Havre de Grace had no zoning laws at all until 1982, when the state imposed a zoning code on the entire city at once — dropping a uniform set of rules onto a historic city full of unusual lots and old buildings that were never designed with those rules in mind. When the law passed, officials created a Board of Appeals as a safety valve for cases that did not fit neatly into the new rules. Residents have been navigating that system ever since.
On top of that, the city is bound by state regulations covering critical areas near the water, floodplains, and requirements to install sprinkler systems in historic buildings when their use changes. Some of the city’s own rules go even further than state law requires — and the mayor said that is not always necessary.
“It’s just very expensive and burdensome sometimes to do the things you want to do or want to see in a town,” Martin said.
What’s happening: A volunteer committee spent months reviewing the city’s roughly 52 chapters of code and produced a final report with 53 recommendations aimed at making the rules clearer, simpler, and more predictable for residents and business owners.
What the report recommends: The committee, proposed several key changes:
- Create a technical review panel that brings together city planning, public works, and outside agencies early in the development process, so residents and developers can raise concerns before construction documents are already finalized. Right now, most public input happens at Planning Commission meetings, when plans are nearly complete and changes are costly.
- Combine about 14 separate chapters of city code that currently govern development into a single unified code. The scattered rules have created conflicting requirements over the years. This would likely require hiring an outside consultant. Several larger cities have created unified development codes in recent years to streamline the process.
- Allow the city’s planning director to approve minor adjustments — up to 20% — to dimensional requirements like setbacks without requiring a full Board of Appeals hearing. A Board of Appeals application currently costs about $500 and may require expert witnesses, even for small issues.
- After the city completes its next comprehensive plan — required by state law every 10 years — conduct a formal citywide rezoning review, giving property owners a chance to apply for a zoning change. Harford County and Aberdeen both recently went through this process.
- Clean up part of the city’s zoning code, which has been largely unchanged since 1982. In some cases, the written code and the zoning table give different answers. The recommendation is to clarify that the written statute controls, and to create separate tables for residential and commercial zones.
- Reorganize the city’s boards and commissions, separating decision-making bodies like the Board of Appeals and Planning Commission from advisory committees, and standardizing how all of them operate.
- Eliminate the Appearance and Preservation Commission, which was created in the early 1990s or early 2000s and appears to have never held a meeting.
- Create a dedicated training budget for board and commission members and staff, particularly on land use and ethics.
- Raise the maximum city fine from $1,000 to $5,000, matching state law. City officials say the change would set a ceiling, not a floor — not every violation would carry the maximum penalty.
What’s new: The committee’s final report is now in the council’s hands. This is the first time the city has conducted a comprehensive review of this kind.
What comes next: Council President Casi Boyer said the council will read through the full report and then schedule one or more work sessions to prioritize which recommendations to act on first. Martin agreed with that approach. The committee itself noted that code review is not a one-time event — it will need to continue as the city changes and state laws evolve.
The committee members were chosen because each had direct, hands-on experience dealing with the city’s permitting and development process, the mayor said. “I wanted to ask gentlemen who actually had experience dealing with the city,” he said.
