Farmland Preservation Program

Judging from the testimony offered at a public hearing Thursday night on the administration's plan to comprehensively rezone western Howard County, the planning board has a lot of work to do before sending its recommendations to the zoning board.Forty-six of the more than 300 people at the Glenelg hearing offered opinions about the plan. And even among those with common interests, no two views were identical.Take for example, the farming community. James M. Sanborne, a Dayton resident who farms in Highland, and Mount Airy farmer Jay Tyson told similar stories about the problems of putting residences next to farms.

Farmland preservation in Howard County received a boost yesterday when the owners of the 723-acre Beck family farm applied to add what would be the largest parcel in the program."

Sponsors of two General Assembly bills that would have taken money from the county's farmland-preservation program and applied it to other uses said yesterday they have abandoned their proposals.Delegate Virginia M. Thomas, D-13A, said her bill to authorize County Executive Charles I. Ecker to take up to 50 percent of the money in the farmland-preservation fund as of Jan. 1 -- approximately $8 million -- and use it for other purposes is no longer needed.Delegate Robert L. Flanagan, R-14B, said he is shelving his bill to remove restrictions from the county portion of the state transfer tax -- approximately $12 million a year -- and deposit that money directly into the general fund, because it could kill the farmland-preservation program.

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.

Just when Harford farmers were getting excited again about a programaimed at preserving farmland, they say a state growth-control plan is emerging as a threat to the farm program.At a meeting on land legislation issues Wednesday in Bel Air, members of the Harford agricultural community expressed interest in the Agricultural Land Preservation Program.But they also made clear their disdain for a proposed state law -- the Maryland Growth and Chesapeake Bay Protection Act of 1991 -- that would regulate growth patterns in the counties.