diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 1d7b2b5f..df3c9bfa 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 setuptools==21.0
+traitlets>=4.1
 tornado==5.1.1
 # Fix to 2.10.0 due to docker-py needs (fails with 2.11.1)
 requests==2.10.0
@@ -6,11 +7,12 @@ requests==2.10.0
 # on ubuntu uses 1.23, so they don't like each other.
 docker-py==1.8
 escapism==0.0.1
-# Pinned to 0.8.0.dev0 due to issues with spawners (fails with 0.8.0)
-git+http://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyterhub.git@2d1a45f0190059ef436c2f97dc8d6e391eb2d139#egg=jupyterhub
+# Pinned to jupyterhub 0.8.0.dev0 due to issues with spawners (fails with 0.8.0)
+jupyterhub @ git+http://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyterhub.git@2d1a45f0190059ef436c2f97dc8d6e391eb2d139#egg=jupyterhub
 jupyter_client==4.3.0
 click==6.6
 tabulate==0.7.5
-git+http://github.com/simphony/tornado-webapi.git@8b6846faae23657a04cf97ca5229ce8ea083d000#egg=tornadowebapi
+tornadowebapi @ git+http://github.com/simphony/tornado-webapi.git@8b6846faae23657a04cf97ca5229ce8ea083d000#egg=tornadowebapi
 # Pinned to 0.10.0 since 0.11.0 does not seem to be compatible with jupyterhub 0.7.x
 oauthenticator==0.10.0
+jinja2>=2.8
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 91ab2672..c035cd13 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -23,19 +23,6 @@ def write_version_py():
 
 write_version_py()
 
-requirements = [
-    "setuptools>=21.0",
-    "traitlets>=4.1",
-    "tornado>=4.3",
-    "requests>=2.10.0",
-    "escapism>=0.0.1",
-    "jinja2>=2.8",
-    "jupyter_client>=4.3.0",
-    "click>=6.6",
-    "tabulate>=0.7.5",
-    "oauthenticator>=0.5",
-]
-
 # Unfortunately RTD cannot install jupyterhub because jupyterhub needs bower,
 # and that is not available. We prevent the request for the unreleased jhub
 # by skipping it if we are on RTD
@@ -46,12 +33,28 @@ def write_version_py():
 if on_rtd:
     # These are the dependencies of jupyterhub that we need to have in order
     # for our code to import on RTD.
-    requirements.extend(["sqlalchemy>=1.0"])
+    requirements = [
+        "setuptools>=21.0",
+        "traitlets>=4.1",
+        "tornado>=4.3",
+        "requests>=2.10.0",
+        "escapism>=0.0.1",
+        "jupyter_client>=4.3.0",
+        "click>=6.6",
+        "tabulate>=0.7.5",
+        "oauthenticator>=0.5",
+        "sqlalchemy>=1.0",
+        # Pinning jinja2 requirements when building on RTD due to
+        # regression when using old versions of sphinx<2
+        # https://github.com/readthedocs/readthedocs.org/issues/9037
+        "jinja2<3.1.0",
+    ]
 else:
-    requirements.extend([
-        "jupyterhub>0.7",
-        "docker-py==1.8",
-        "tornadowebapi>=0.5.0"])
+    with open('requirements.txt', 'r') as REQUIREMENTS:
+        requirements = [
+            line.strip() for line in REQUIREMENTS.readlines()
+            if not line.startswith('#')
+        ]
 
 
 class install(_install):