Keeping up with the Accelerating Pace of Change

If the editorial published in the October 24 Capital, expressing support for the Crystal Spring project, is based on the most  recent Annapolis Comprehensive Plan, we have a problem.  The Plan was published in 2009.  While that date is 6 years ago, it should be noted that the Plan is based on a Transportation Issue Paper dated March 2007 and a Growth Management Issue Paper also dated March 2007.  Since these two issue papers were published in March of 2007, they were based on materials published or researched prior to 2007.

If you check out the Annapolis Comprehensive Plan Transportation Issue Paper, for example, and review the references they cite, some of those references date  back to 1995.  We are being asked to make strategic decisions based on materials some of which are 20 years old.  Surely, we can and should do better.

The Plan was updated as recently as September 2014.  However, the source documentation is out of date.  Elements of the Plan are being updated and implemented, but is that sufficient?  Additionally, the active consideration of annexation dates back to at least 1995.

Our world has changed and we have learned a lot about our natural environment and our community in the past 20 years.  The trajectory of change is steep.  We need to update our information and use the tools of technology to help us understand and evaluate the impact of that change.  We need current facts upon which to make decisions.

Oh, and by the way, what are you using to guide your future personal or professional life that was developed back in 2009 (and based on information from 1995)?   Were events like nuisance flooding even on our radar screen back then?

The Annapolis Comprehensive Plan noted that only 3% of Annapolis land was vacant and 7% was for recreation and open space.  If these percentages are accurate and continue to erode, is that indicative of a community on the decline?

And most importantly, what do these percentages look like today?  And, what is the impact of these percentages on the projects currently under review for our community?

Continuously using Economic Development as the basis for supporting a project rings hollow.  It is over-used and baseless.

Deriding the opponents of assaults on our environment and equating this stance to not caring about  the well-being of our elderly population would be a laughable accusation if it were not so sad.