Calvert County planners start Huntingtown master-plan update; residents press to keep town’s rural character

Calvert County planning staff on Tuesday presented options for updating the Huntingtown Town Center master plan and asked residents for feedback on whether the area should remain a town center, be designated a rural commercial district, or be recast as a smaller "minor" town center.

Jason Brinkley, director of planning and zoning, opened the meeting by calling it “a community conversation. We wanna hear feedback from you all,” and said the presentation represented an early step in a months‑long process that will return to the Planning Commission in November and to the Board of County Commissioners in December.

The master-plan update is part of a newly condensed county process adopted in February 2025 that combines separate town‑center master plans into a single Master Plan of Town Centers with a chapter for each center, staff said. Tay Harris, a long‑range planner, described the relationship between the county comprehensive plan, functional plans, small‑area (town center) plans and the zoning ordinance. “The Calvert County comprehensive plan is the guiding policy document for the county,” Harris said, adding that the state requires the county to update it every 10 years; Calvert’s plan was last updated in 2019 and amended in 2022 and again in 2025 for zoning consistency.

Staff presented baseline data for Huntingtown: the town‑center area contains 81 parcels across about 304 acres; the U.S. Census American…