Office of Planning

Priority Funding Areas (PFAs)

In 1997, the Maryland General Assembly passed "Smart Growth" legislation that created Priority Funding Areas. This enactment followed the 1992 Economic Growth, Resource Protection, and Planning Act, which articulated Maryland's growth policy by establishing seven visions, which have since been expanded to twelve. The 1997 legislation, now known as the Priority Funding Areas (PFA) Law, was enacted "to preserve existing neighborhoods and agricultural, natural, and rural resources; prohibiting state agencies from approving specified projects that are not in priority funding areas; providing for specified exceptions; establishing a certification process for the designation of eligible priority funding areas; requiring municipal corporations to adopt specified development standards and assist counties in the collection of fees to finance specified school construction; etc." PFAs were established to focus the State's growth-related spending into existing communities and locally designated growth areas, thus ensuring a more efficient use of funding and limiting growth induced by the extension of infrastructure into areas better suited for preservation and limited growth.​​1

For more information on PFAs, the Maryland Office of Planning's (MOP) weblink may be accessed here.

MOP PFA Map link may be accessed here.

1 Source: Maryland Office of Planning (Date: 08/26/2022)