Western Howard County is a canvas of contradictions: farms and picturesque equestrian pastures, huge subdivisions and traffic congestion at peak hours every day and vast open spaces standing as shields against the pressures of development.
Those safeguards may be too little and the development too great, though, for state officials, who are considering removing the county from Maryland's land preservation program.
The removal would cost the county an estimated $250,000 annually. But Joy Levy, the county's administrator for agriculture preservation, says the ramifications are not just economic.
"We've been in the agriculture preservation business longer than any other county," she says. "The symbolism of losing state certification is significant to us. Certification has implications to the credibility to the program. It recognizes that the county has an effective program."
Just how effective is at issue. After inordinate delay, that question may be decided Tuesday when officials of the state program - Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation (MALPF) - meet to consider whether to certify Howard County for another two years, or, in effect, drop it from the program.
The board's position, though, is more a recommendation to the state Department of Agriculture, which has the final word.
Marsha L. McLaughlin, director of the county's Department of Planning and Zoning, says there is an even more important reason to be re-certified: The first of 4,000 preserved acres could, under some circumstances, begin coming back onto the market this year for development.
"That's something that everyone is trying to avoid," McLaughlin says. "It's important that the county and the state send the same message about how important agriculture preservation is. Certification helps do that."
The state program was established in 1977 as the nation's first attempt to retain farming and check sprawl.
The principle architect of the program was then-state Sen. James Clark Jr., who has placed almost 550 acres in preserve in Howard County.
"I've thought land is a natural resource and not a commodity to be sold," he says. "I just wanted to keep the land as it was and pass it on to my children.
"If it wasn't for [preservation efforts], we wouldn't have open space in a few years."
