Farmland Preservation Program

Carroll's commissioners, delivering their state of the county addresses at the Chamber of Commerce meeting last week, said the worst of the county's fiscal crisis is behind us. With an increasing number of economic signs improving, they are probably right. Nevertheless, it is going to take years to rebuild some programs that were slashed, improve the moral of county workers who have been without raises and restore a sense of optimism to residents.As Commissioner Elmer C. Lippy aptly put it, the county has been existing on the basics.

County Executive Charles I. Ecker sent the County Council legislation this week that would tighten the criteria for admission to the county's farmland preservation program and set a maximum price for easements of $6,600 an acre.The program has been on hold since last January, when the council approved $2 million for easements on 353 acres. Property owners who sell easements to the county agree to keep their land free from development.When the program was halted, 30 property owners were awaiting admission to the program.

None too soon, the Howard County Council has passed a bill that revises the county's criteria for admission to its farmland preservation program and raises the top purchase price permissible to $6,600 an acre.When the law takes effect in May, the Howard County government can begin saving the best pieces of farmland from the grasp of developers. The window of opportunity has been made even wider by land prices and interest rates suppressed by the recession.In its initial form, from 1980 to 1988, the preservation program couldn't compete with what developers were offering.

Charity begins at home. It's an old cliche, but it's offered as a plea to the residents of the tiny western Howard County community of Daisy and their attempts to stop a local church from providing a retreat for caregivers of the terminally ill.A handful of residents fear plans for a retreat by the backers of Terrific Inc., which stands for Temporary Emergency Residential Resource Institute for Families in Crisis. The 32-acre parcel would be a place of respite for about eight people at a time so they could take a break from the stress of providing long-term care for critically ill family members.

The Planning and Zoning Commission took another swipe yesterday at proposals from county department heads yesterday, cutting $4.98 million from noneducational 1998 capital budget requests.Since Oct. 1, the commission has whittled $9.2 million from the department chiefs' spending requests. And members will begin their line-by-line review of the Board of Education's proposed capital plan Nov. 14.Commission members spent the first part of their 8 1/2 -hour meeting debating whether to limit their review to "rubber stamping" every request that conforms to the county master plan.

CARROLL COUNTY HAS exhibited "strength in the face of weakness" in accelerating economic development, Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown boasted in his "state of the county" speech to the Chamber of Commerce last week. "We've turned a corner in Carroll County with economic development and we're picking up speed."Yet Carroll still has much distance to make up. Commercial and industrial land, which generates the greatest tax return, accounts for only about 15 percent of the tax base -- the lowest percentage in the Baltimore metro region.

The County Commissioners balked yesterday when asked to use $1 million of Carroll's agricultural land preservation money to attract millions more in state aid.William Powel, the county's Agricultural Preservation Program administrator, suggested the commissioners set aside $500,000 this year and next year to enhance Carroll's chances of being included in the state's new Rural Legacy Program.A commitment of local funds is not a requirement for participation in the state program, Powel told the commissioners yesterday, but it would make Carroll's application more attractive, he said.

Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown's ambitious proposal to nearly double the size of the county's farmland preservation program failed yesterday to win support from his fellow commissioners.Commissioners Richard T. Yates and Donald I. Dell were troubled by the cornerstone of the proposal, an ordinance that would earmark 10 cents of the county's property tax rate -- $2.62 per $100 of assessed value -- for agricultural preservation. Next year, that would equal $3.4 million."I'm in favor of funding agricultural preservation.

The Carroll commissioners will decide today whether to add 657.35 acres - mostly near Taneytown and Lineboro - to the state's farmland preservation program. The commissioners will vote after a public hearing on the petitions to add nine parcels to the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Program. Carroll's planning commission and the county's Agricultural Preservation Board have recommended approving the petitions. If the commissioners approve the petitions, the decision on the parcels would go before the board of the State Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation on April 24 for final approval for designation in the program.

The Carroll County planning commission approved the most recent revisions to a contentious zoning law yesterday, recommending only a few minor changes. The revisions, which also received general approval from the county commissioners last week, would remove aspects of the law that critics say would prompt a rise in development across the county's rural land. The only change recommended by the planning commission would eliminate a 1.75-acre ceiling on the average size of lots in a clustered development on land zoned for conservation.