Queen Anne's County, MD Accessory Structures: ADU Owner Occupancy (2026)

The owner-residence requirement is Subsection D of § 18:1-48, the county's accessory apartment section. The section allows one accessory guest residence or apartment as an accessory residential use per single-family lot, provided four conditions are met, and the last is blunt: the owner of the principal dwelling unit must reside on the property. The word is must, and the code prints no waiver, hardship exception, or time limit for the residency condition in this section. It sits alongside the other conditions: the unit sits within the principal dwelling structure or an approved residential accessory structure, it does not exceed 1,500 square feet in total floor area, and where the lot is not on public sewer the Queen Anne's County Health Department approves it.

The requirement is specific to this use. The caretaker dwelling in § 18:1-46, available on parcels of five or more acres, prints no owner-residence condition, and farm employee dwellings under § 18:1-55 are tied to farm employment instead, with two permitted on a farm. Home occupations carry their own residency rule in § 18:1-56, a full-time resident operator.

Because the condition turns on facts about who lives where, the Planning Director has an information tool: under § 18:1-209 the Planning Commission, the Board, or the Planning Director can at any time request that information needed for any determination under Chapter 18:1 be submitted under affidavit, signed by the owner and notarized, stating under the penalties of perjury that the statements are true. In the Critical Area Resource Conservation Area, § 14:1-39(B)(2)(c) adds that a separate additional dwelling unit cannot be subdivided or conveyed separately from the primary dwelling unit. These rules apply in unincorporated Queen Anne's County, including Kent Island, and not inside the incorporated towns.