Development Rights

MARYLAND HAS been a pioneer in farmland preservation. Its 146,500 acres protected since 1980 is more than double any other state, and its $128 million investment in agricultural easements is one-fifth of the U.S. total.So a story last week that Howard County was running out of money to continue purchasing development rights from farmers set off alarm bells. That, coupled with reports out of Carroll County about legislative mischief to ease development of farmland, was enough to stir speculation that Maryland was about to lead farm preservation on its way down.

General Services Administration officials said Wednesday they had received nearly three dozen responses to a request for ideas about a new FBI headquarters, a potentially lucrative development that Maryland leaders hope to land in Prince George's County. State and local officials have been working behind the scenes for months to lure the FBI to Maryland if the agency leaves its 38-year-old headquarters, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, in downtown Washington. The state is competing with Virginia and Washington for the roughly 11,000 jobs associated with the facility.

Marge Cissel is pressing her right index finger into the cover of a white loose-leaf binder containing a new state law limiting the use of septic systems, urging restricted development rights for some farm property. She's had the binder for months now, adding up what the law means for the value of her family's 310 acres in the Lisbon area, and she's angry. "This is not compensation," says Cissel, who with her husband, Lambert, started the Kimberthy Turf Farm 50 years ago. "This is legalized stealing.

As "tractorcade" protests go, the demonstration of farmers and farm vehicles in Annapolis on Tuesday morning was a modest affair with a handful of old-fashioned tractors and some equally well-worn grievances. The timetable may have been a little off, too, since the protesters' collective ire was directed at a law that the General Assembly passed last year. Nevertheless, the group of farmers assembled at the State House to support legislation that would repeal the Sustainable Growth and Agricultural Preservation Act of 2012 - or, as most people know it, Gov. Martin O'Malley's septics bill.

A partnership between the towns and county government is necessary before transferable development rights are possible, Hampstead officials told the Carroll County Planning Commission during their council meeting last night.Commission members and county planners said they attended the bimonthly meeting to discuss the transferable development rights (TDR) concept and see if council members were receptive."The two entities need to work together so we are both going in the same direction," said Councilman Arthur Moler.

Would it be a boon to Carroll County's agricultural character or a blow to the county's industry?Bill Powel, administrator of the county's Agricultural Land Preservation Program, said yesterday that if Carroll County wants to preserve its agricultural land, it may have to introduce a new system of transferable development rights, or TDRs.He was speaking to the regular meeting of the county Economic Development Commission.But William Jenne, administrator of the county's economic development office, said TDRs could cause the price of industrial land in the county to rise.

County planners and Planning Commission members took the issue of transfer development rights to Mount Airy residents Monday night, as part of the evolution of the Southwest Carroll Plan.The proposal being studied would involve the transfer of development rights from agricultural land to areas surrounding the county's eight towns. The transfer is a mechanism to preserve agricultural acreage by selling the development rights. The rights are purchased by developers. Once this occurs, a developer can "move" the rights to another property designated for residential development.

The Harford County Council will vote Tuesday night on new development standards that would allow farmers and rural landowners to cluster development rights on one part of their land and keep the remainder of the property for their own use.By allowing houses to be clustered, county planners hope to avoid suburban sprawl while preserving farmland and open spaces.But there's a catch: Any landowner who clusters development rights must put the rest of their land in a perpetual easement.That means the land never can be developed, or rezoned.

Harford's Planning and Zoning Department has begun the task of looking at whether Harford should allow rural landowners to sell property development rights for use on other land.Such programs, known as transfer of development rights, or TDRs, are used in Howard, Montgomery and Anne Arundel counties.The County Council voted, 6-1, Tuesday to direct county planners to not only look at whether Harford should establish a TDR program but also to begin developing recommendations on how such a program should work.

William Powel, Carroll County's agricultural preservation coordinator, tried to explain transfers of development rights to about 45 people last night.But the discussion kept getting mired in questions of whether the program is worth pursuing."This should have started when we brought in the concept of zoning," said Westminster farmer Donald Essich, arguing that county residents will not accept higher density in exchange for saving local farms. "This is too late."Transfers of development rights, similar to agricultural preservation programs, allow land owners to sell easements and permanently maintain their property as open space.

The landscape of Howard County's "rural west" - the chunk of the county roughly west of Route 108 and Centennial Lane - is set for the moment, and most owners hold the right to develop their land, or not, as they wish. This could change, though, depending on the outcome of discussions that have been going on behind the scenes in county government. The debate could emerge at the County Council on Monday, as the panel takes up its disagreement with County Executive Ken Ulman's administration regarding development rights in that area, 94,201 acres that make up nearly 60 percent of all the county's land.

This Howard County movie has played before: the County Council considering laws to restrict rural land development, farmers staging a tractor parade protesting what they see as an attack on their property values, public officials saying preservation efforts would only push landowners into the arms of developers. Scenes from farmland development fights of 1985 and 1988 have unfolded again lately, albeit with fewer tractors in the parade, fewer farmers in the dispute and about half as much farmland to argue about.

We are disturbed by the decisions made by 3 r d District Baltimore County Councilman Todd Huff in the recent Comprehensive Zoning Map Process ("Letter about Huff's CZMP decision begs for rebuttal," Nov. 15). He gave more development rights to rural landowners even though the areas were labeled for agricultural preservation or resource preservation. That goes against the county's master plan, it is destructive to the environment, and makes it harder for farmers to keep farming.

Residents and farmers in western Howard County sparred Thursday night over whether three farm families should be allowed to reclaim the development rights on their farmland - the first-ever attempt to defect from Maryland's agricultural land-preservation program. More than 100 people turned out for the hearing at the Howard County fairgrounds in West Friendship on the request by Steve, Mike and Mark Mullinix to withdraw their 490 acres from Maryland's program, which they had entered 28 years ago. The state paid $450,000 for an easement barring development - though owners who sold development rights before 2004 retain the right to ask out after 25 years if they can show that farming is no longer profitable.

Marge Cissel is pressing her right index finger into the cover of a white loose-leaf binder containing a new state law limiting the use of septic systems, urging restricted development rights for some farm property. She's had the binder for months now, adding up what the law means for the value of her family's 310 acres in the Lisbon area, and she's angry. "This is not compensation," says Cissel, who with her husband, Lambert, started the Kimberthy Turf Farm 50 years ago. "This is legalized stealing.

As state and local officials weigh Maryland's first request by any farmer to reclaim development rights voluntarily sold to the state decades ago, preservation advocates and state planners warn that permissive zoning in some rural counties threaten to erode the state's remaining open space. The Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation is holding a public hearing at 6 p.m. Thursday (11/15) at the Howard County Fairgrounds on the requests by a partnership of three county farmers, Mike, Steve and Mark Mullinix, to terminate easements barring development on three farms they operate with a combined 490 acres.

In a setback for Howard County's farmland preservation program, the University of Maryland has backed away from its plan to sell the government development rights to its 900-acre research farm in the heart of the county.Ray Miller, vice chancellor for agriculture and natural resources, said yesterday that "it became very obvious that certain political forces are not interested in funds going from one governmental agency to another." He declined to elaborate.In addition, he said, the university was informed by its lawyers that the county's farmland preservation program might place restrictions on future expansion of the university's Central Maryland Farm Research and Education Center.

To discourage farmers from selling land to developers, county planners recommend that the county start its own program to buy developmentrights on agricultural land.That was one of several ideas planners outlined as they explained a rural plan to the County Council in aspecial presentation Tuesday.Michael Paone, an agricultural planner in the county Planning andZoning Department, said the county might consider paying owners of agricultural land with bonds instead of cash. Under such a bond-payment arrangement, landowners would be entitled to receive tax-exempt interest payments for 30 years -- the life of the bond.

There have been Mullinixes farming in western Howard County for more than a century. Nearly three decades ago, as a mark of their commitment to working the land, the family sold the development rights on their farms to the state of Maryland. Now, though, brothers Mike, Stephen and Mark Mullinix say they want out. Not out of farming, necessarily, but out from under a state program that limits how they can use their land - a move that worries preservationists. "We're trying to generate income from other things, and [state officials are]

The 2012 Comprehensive Zoning Map Process (CZMP) decisions provide a way to measure the performance of Todd Huff, our freshman councilman for the 3rd District. When Huff ran on a platform of being in favor of both property rights and land preservation, many residents were confused. His CZMP decisions demonstrate that he will use his zoning power to further landowners' development rights rather than the health, safety and welfare of Baltimore County. During his campaign, Huff promised not to change the zoning enacted by his predecessor, Bryan McIntire.