Farmland Preservation Program

The county commissioners agreed yesterday to add nine farms with more than 650 acres to the state's farmland preservation program, which pays landowners not to develop agricultural land. Commissioners Donald I. Dell and Robin Bartlett Frazier voted in favor of the petitions after a brief meeting yesterday. Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge was not present. "I'm real happy with what is happening right now," Dell said. "All the farmers seem to be getting interested in the program." Situated mostly near Taneytown and Lineboro, the farms will be officially enrolled in the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Program if they get final approval from the board of the state Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation.

The Carroll commissioners approved only a few tweaks to their proposed 2004 budget yesterday during the final scheduled work session on the spending plan, which still could be scrambled by impending state cuts. The most significant change approved yesterday would add $3 million to the county's agricultural land-preservation program to offset a lack of state funding for preservation. The commissioners said they were satisfied overall with the budget, which includes $245 million in operating money and $62 million in capital expenses.

The seeds Carroll officials planted three years ago to revitalize the county's then-barren farmland preservation program are beginning to bear fruit.The number of rural landowners willing to put their property into agricultural land preservation districts had dropped from 50 a year to zero earlier this decade.But last year -- for the first time since 1991 -- the number of people willing to enter the program became more than a trickle. Seventeen property owners put 2,000 acres into preservation districts last year, and another 20 are putting 2,200 acres into districts this year.

The tumult surrounding a Carroll zoning ordinance passed in September has mostly died out, with county residents and state planning officials expressing satisfaction during a hearing last night at proposed amendments to the law they once reviled. "Quibbling over details aside, I think we're at a meeting of the minds here on the larger issue," said state Secretary of Planning Roy W. Kienitz, who a few months ago described the original law as one of the worst blows ever to Maryland's land preservation efforts.

Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown outlined an aggressive plan yesterday to nearly double the county's farmland preservation program -- a plan he says is crucial if Carroll is to reach its goal of preserving 100,000 acres by 2020.Under his proposal, county and state annual spending on Carroll's preservation program would grow to about $7 million, up from current spending of about $4 million.The money would allow the county to permanently set aside 3,500 acres of farmland a year, 1,500 acres more than it is able to preserve now."

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.

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Long criticized for failing to slow down suburban sprawl, Pennsylvania now has something to brag about: national recognition of its farmland-preservation program. The state received an achievement award last week from American Farmland Trust, a nonprofit farmland-conservation group, for protecting more farmland than any other state. Since its creation in 1989, Pennsylvania's publicly funded Farmland Preservation Program has protected more than 1,400 farms and 180,000 acres of farmland from development.

In an unprecedented action, the state of Maryland has issued an ultimatum to Carroll County commissioners: Repeal a contentious new zoning law by Jan. 15 or funds for your vaunted farmland preservation program will be cut. The zoning law, now 3 months old, counters the goals of the state's farmland preservation program and, more broadly, Gov. Parris N. Glendening's Smart Growth agenda, said Roy W. Kienitz, Maryland's secretary of planning. "Indeed, this appears to be the single largest step backward in rural land protection in Maryland in recent memory," he wrote in the letter dated yesterday to the commissioners.

,TC The County Council will be asked tonight to approve spending 60 percent of the county's remaining farmland preservation program money to buy easements on 10 properties.If the council agrees with County Executive Charles I. Ecker's $11.2 million request -- the first in two years -- another 1,861 rural acres would be added to the county's farmland preservation program.Discussion of the 10 properties and the revised criteria under which their owners applied for admission to the highly successful program account for 11 of the 23 items on the agenda at a public hearing at 8 p.m. today.

Mary Zepp knows the pressures that western Howard County farmers face. Real estate agents started calling her 10 years ago right after her husband died."

Carroll's share of land transfer taxes - revenue the state collects from property sales - nearly doubled last year to $654,815, which means more money for the county's farmland preservation efforts. That news arrives at the end of the county's most successful year of expanding the number of farms and acres in its farmland preservation program, one of the most productive in the country. "This is best [preservation] year we have ever had," Bill Powel, county preservation director, said in a report to the Carroll commissioners yesterday.

Carroll's share of land transfer taxes - revenue the state collects from property sales - nearly doubled last year to $654,815, which means more money for the county's farmland preservation efforts. That news arrives at the end of the county's most successful year of expanding the number of farms and acres in its farmland preservation program, one of the most productive in the country. "This is best [preservation] year we have ever had," Bill Powel, county preservation director, said in a report to the Carroll commissioners yesterday.

In an unprecedented action, the state of Maryland has issued an ultimatum to Carroll County commissioners: Repeal a contentious new zoning law by Jan. 15 or funds for your vaunted farmland preservation program will be cut. The zoning law, now 3 months old, counters the goals of the state's farmland preservation program and, more broadly, Gov. Parris N. Glendening's Smart Growth agenda, said Roy W. Kienitz, Maryland's secretary of planning. "Indeed, this appears to be the single largest step backward in rural land protection in Maryland in recent memory," he wrote in the letter dated yesterday to the commissioners.

The county commissioners agreed yesterday to add nine farms with more than 650 acres to the state's farmland preservation program, which pays landowners not to develop agricultural land. Commissioners Donald I. Dell and Robin Bartlett Frazier voted in favor of the petitions after a brief meeting yesterday. Commissioner Julia Walsh Gouge was not present. "I'm real happy with what is happening right now," Dell said. "All the farmers seem to be getting interested in the program." Situated mostly near Taneytown and Lineboro, the farms will be officially enrolled in the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Program if they get final approval from the board of the state Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation.

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Long criticized for failing to slow down suburban sprawl, Pennsylvania now has something to brag about: national recognition of its farmland-preservation program. The state received an achievement award last week from American Farmland Trust, a nonprofit farmland-conservation group, for protecting more farmland than any other state. Since its creation in 1989, Pennsylvania's publicly funded Farmland Preservation Program has protected more than 1,400 farms and 180,000 acres of farmland from development.

The Rash brothers' farm, where gentle hills of timothy and alfalfa once supported one of the largest dairy herds in Carroll County, is more than another patch of farmland, the brothers say. It is the key to their comfortable retirement -- a 401(k) plan with fertilizer."Working people have pension plans, stocks and bonds to cash in. A farmer has land. How we sell it determines what kind of retirement we have," says Glenn Rash, 68, who owns the 400-acre farm west of Route 97 with brothers Edwin, 73, and Claude, 61.But to cash in their investment, the Rashes will need tomorrow to persuade the Carroll County commissioners to rezone more than 145 acres of farmland for an upscale golf course community with 50 homes.

Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden says he will introduce legislation to the County Council to create a farmland preservation program.The program would bring the county into conformance with new state regulations, although officials say they doubt it would be used much unless state agricultural preservation funds dry up.Since 1980, the county has participated in a state farmland preservation program that buys development rights to agricultural land....

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. -- Stung by criticism that he has failed to protect dwindling farmland from development, Suffolk County Executive Robert Gaffney says that he planned to revitalize a farmland preservation program that was started in the 1970s.In his annual state of the county address here to the Suffolk legislature, Gaffney said he would propose "a significant increase" in spending to buy development rights to farms on the East End, where nearly all of Suffolk's remaining 33,000 farm acres are located.

Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown outlined an aggressive plan yesterday to nearly double the county's farmland preservation program -- a plan he says is crucial if Carroll is to reach its goal of preserving 100,000 acres by 2020.Under his proposal, county and state annual spending on Carroll's preservation program would grow to about $7 million, up from current spending of about $4 million.The money would allow the county to permanently set aside 3,500 acres of farmland a year, 1,500 acres more than it is able to preserve now."

EFFORTS TO expand preservation of Carroll's rural heritage got a boost this month with two recommendations of the county's Planning and Zoning Commission.One would increase the amount of farmland protected from development to a total of nearly 46,000 acres, about halfway toward the stated goal of 100,000 acres preserved within the next two decades. The other would designate 35 unincorporated communities as official "rural villages" whose character would be protected under the county's Master Plan for future land use. They are residential areas with historical attributes.