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.

Boniface vows to find common ground on development rights In his first legislative address before the County Council on Tuesday night, council President Billy Boniface will call for reform of the county's rules for transferring development rights, a hot topic among the county's agriculture community. Previous efforts have made little headway, but Boniface vowed last week to find common ground. Critics have said the county's regulations fall far short of designing a comprehensive program that would help guide development countywide, not just in farming areas.

During a discussion on Carroll's plan for growth and development, the county commissioners yesterday asked planners to determine how land is being used in the county, a process that was last completed in 1994.The study will show how much land has been reserved for agricultural preservation, residential development and industrial or commercial uses. The commissioners have asked that the data be illustrated on a map, so they can see where development is occurring and assess the county's needs.

The county's planning board yesterday approved asking the state to make three farms -- a total of more than 433 acres -- eligible for Maryland's agricultural preservation program.If their request is approved by the state in July, owners of the land would have to refrain from development for five years for their land to be considered an "agricultural preservation district." It is a first step in preserving the land by selling the state development rights.The parcels are:86.57 acres owned by Dorothy F. Munshaur and her brother, Russell L. Fogelsong, at 3005 Mayberry Road in Westminster.

The Carroll commissioners yesterday took the first step toward their goal of preserving 1,000 acres along Little Pipe Creek, near the historic towns of Union Bridge and New Windsor.The three-member Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved seven applications to the state's Rural Legacy program. It is expected to take the state's rural legacy and public works boards about two months to review the documents.Approval by state officials would give the county commissioners permission to spend about $1.4 million to protect 634 acres in the Little Pipe Creek watershed, a 35,000-acre area on the western edge of the county.

The Carroll commissioners yesterday took the first step toward their goal of preserving 1,000 acres along Little Pipe Creek, near the historic towns of Union Bridge and New Windsor.The three-member Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved seven applications to the state's Rural Legacy program. It is expected to take the state's rural legacy and public works boards about two months to review the documents.Approval by state officials would give the county commissioners permission to spend about $1.4 million to protect 634 acres in the Little Pipe Creek watershed, a 35,000-acre area on the western edge of the county.

During a discussion on Carroll's plan for growth and development, the county commissioners yesterday asked planners to determine how land is being used in the county, a process that was last completed in 1994.The study will show how much land has been reserved for agricultural preservation, residential development and industrial or commercial uses. The commissioners have asked that the data be illustrated on a map, so they can see where development is occurring and assess the county's needs.

In their first public discussion on Carroll's plan for future growth and development, the county commissioners considered yesterday a new strategy for preserving farmland.The program would allow builders to increase the density of homes in one area if they preserved rural land in another.This policy, known as transferable development rights, compensates farmers for the development potential of their land. It is used in Montgomery and Calvert counties and counties in California and New Jersey, Carroll planners said.

Despite questions about a 1989 agreement with the county, about 95 farmers will be eligible for thousands of dollars' worth of bonuses for putting their land into the state's Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation.The Carroll County Commissioners voted yesterday to honor the agreement, which rewards those who preserve their land by paying them a percentage of the value of the development rights, in addition to money they receive from the state for entering the program. The agreement could cost the county up to $1.05 million.

Steven Troyer grew up helping his father raise cattle, barley, corn and wheat on a family farm that spans the scenic hills, woods and fields near White Hall in northern Baltimore County."

Columbia-based Corporate Office Properties Trust said Thursday that it paid $125 million to acquire Baltimore developer Edwin F. Hale Sr.'s 1st Mariner Tower and surrounding land slated for a large waterfront development. COPT, which already held a $30 million secondary loan on the office building, invested $95 million more to close the deal that also included a parking lot, a utility distribution center and development rights to four waterfront lots associated with the Canton Crossing planned development, said Roger Waesche Jr., COPT's chief operating officer, during a conference call with analysts to discuss the company's third-quarter earnings.

The financially troubled developer of a huge business park being built at Aberdeen Proving Ground to serve base restructuring has backed out of the project and handed it off to Baltimore-based St. John Properties. Under plans approved by the Army, Rockville-based Opus East assigned development rights to St. John, which announced the agreement Tuesday and said it plans to start work on three or four research and office buildings. The 400-acre project, Government and Technology Enterprise, or GATE, is being developed as a 2 million- to 3 million-square-foot research and development park in partnership with the Army to handle growth from BRAC - military base restructuring.

A heavily amended zoning code appears likely to win the Harford County Council's approval Tuesday when it is scheduled for a vote. The seven-member panel added 136 amendments to the 800-page draft that was nearly two years in the writing and the subject of numerous workshops and public hearings. It was early Wednesday before the council had voted on all the changes. "The code is likely to pass because all of us understand the need to move forward on the issues," said Council President Billy Boniface.

At the first of two public hearings on the county's zoning code rewrite, questions and concerns with a proposed transfer of development rights dominated the discussion. The hearing drew such a large crowd that officials will continue the session Tuesday evening at North Harford High School. While county officials consider the sale of agricultural development rights to property owners in designated growth areas a giant step in land preservation, many residents fear it will create sprawl in rural enclaves, such as Fallston and Joppa.

Harford County has spent more than $20 million on land preservation this year, bringing to about 43,000 the number of acres in permanent protection programs, but the purchases have nearly exhausted all the funding reserves available to safeguard farms from development. If the county is to reach its goal of 55,000 acres preserved by 2012, officials say they must find alternative means, possibly a free market approach such as Transfer of Development Rights, or TDR, to continue protecting land.

Boniface vows to find common ground on development rights In his first legislative address before the County Council on Tuesday night, council President Billy Boniface will call for reform of the county's rules for transferring development rights, a hot topic among the county's agriculture community. Previous efforts have made little headway, but Boniface vowed last week to find common ground. Critics have said the county's regulations fall far short of designing a comprehensive program that would help guide development countywide, not just in farming areas.

The Howard County Council tabled a bill last night that would allow the sale of development rights by people living on at least 20 acres in rural residential zones that are contiguous to parkland. The bill, sponsored by council Chairman Guy Guzzone, a North Laurel-Savage Democrat, would help a woman who has a horse farm on land next to Schooley Mill Park, and who wants to preserve the land while still profiting from her right to develop it. He said there are other places in the county where the law could apply, allowing preservation of more rural land.

The development rights for three large farms in northern Baltimore County have been purchased for $1.4 million under land preservation programs, county officials said. In all, 423 acres will be preserved, including 166 acres being added to the Piney Run Rural Legacy area, a 10,000-acre block of protected land in northwest Baltimore County. The Piney Run area is the largest such block in the county and one of the largest protected areas on the East Coast, said Wally Lippincott Jr., land preservation program administrator for the county Department of Environmental Protection and Resource Management.

A pioneer in trying to save farms from development, Howard County has since become a leader in the opposite direction - losing a greater share of its farmland over the past decade to homes, malls and highways than any other county in Maryland. Sandwiched between Baltimore and Washington, once-bucolic Howard has become so thoroughly suburban in the past 25 years that state planners now question the value of investing more public funds in buying up the remaining farmers' development rights.

Preservation was purpose of land transfer I write to do what no one else has yet done -- put forward the facts about the proposed St. Mary's County land deal and let the public make up its own mind. The facts are as follows: Notwithstanding the veil of secrecy around the St. Mary's land deal, as far as I knew the transaction was openly discussed with dozens of public officials and was no secret at all. Communications with all public officials and lawyers were open and non-confidential from the start ("Hackerman says secrecy about deal wasn't his idea," Dec. 8)