Land Preservation

    Carroll County's Agricultural Lands Preservation Program has been awarded $618,000 through the Maryland Rural Legacy Program for preserving farmland or natural lands. The county will use the funds to buy conservation easements from willing sellers within designated areas. The easements reserve property from future development, but the land remains in private ownership. The owner is compensated for essentially "retiring" the development potential on the land. The Maryland Rural Legacy Program was created in 1998 to preserve large contiguous areas of rural land.

An education advocate and a longtime state lawmaker say they are eyeing Baltimore County Councilman Todd Huff's seat. Democrat Laurie Taylor-Mitchell, an art historian and local education advocate, said she has decided to run for the four-year term in 2014, and Republican Del. Wade Kach said he's "seriously considering it. " Huff, a Lutherville Republican, was elected in 2010 for the district that covers the northern part of the county....

As President of the Howard County Chapter of the Homebuilders Association of Maryland (HBAM), I would like to respond to Howard County Executive Ken Ulman's recent veto of County Council Bill 37, the growth tier map ("Ulman vetoes land preservation bill," Dec. 16). Members of HBAM, the farming community and a broad coalition of citizens worked closely with the County Council to craft a tier map that would continue to support the successful Density Exchange Option (DEO) program, which has led in part to the preservation of more than 21,600 acres of land in agricultural easements and thousands of additional acres preserved under environmental and other easements.

A draft of the 2013 Land Preservation, Parks and Recreation Plan has been released and a public information session on the plan will be held next week in Bel Air, the Harford County Department of Parks and Recreation has announced. The 2013 Land Preservation, Parks and Recreation Plan sets forth several major goals for the department, including: • Acquiring land and developing facilities, including trails, to meet the recreation needs of current and future residents; • Ensuring the availability of program opportunities; • Addressing citizens and participants safety; • Incorporating appropriate environmental stewardship in department activities and projects; and • Marketing facilities and programs in cooperation with other public and private sector partners.

A draft of the 2013 Land Preservation, Parks and Recreation Plan has been released and a public information session on the plan will be held next week in Bel Air, the Harford County Department of Parks and Recreation has announced. The 2013 Land Preservation, Parks and Recreation Plan sets forth several major goals for the department, including: • Acquiring land and developing facilities, including trails, to meet the recreation needs of current and future residents; • Ensuring the availability of program opportunities; • Addressing citizens and participants safety; • Incorporating appropriate environmental stewardship in department activities and projects; and • Marketing facilities and programs in cooperation with other public and private sector partners.

A free Agricultural Land Preservation Seminar will be held from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. March 7 at the Harford County Cooperative Extension Office, 2335 Rock Spring Road, Forest Hill. The scheduled speakers are Jay Young, a lawyer with Brown, Brown and Brown; Aimee O'Neill, a real-estate appraiser from O'Neill's Auction; and Bill Amoss, administrator of the Harford County agricultural land preservation program. Among the topics expected to covered are: Identifying the various agricultural preservation easement programs.

The Maryland Cooperative Extension's Harford County office and the Harford County Planning and Zoning Department's Agricultural Land Preservation Program will conduct a free "Agricultural Land Preservation" seminar from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. March 12 at the extension's office, 2335 Rock Spring Road, Forest Hill. Scheduled speakers are lawyer Jay Young, real estate appraiser Aimee O'Neill, Harford County Agricultural Land Preservation Program administrator Bill Amoss and Harford Land Trust representative David Miller.

People wanting to testify before the Howard County Council tonight about proposed changes in the agricultural land preservation law or a planned reorganization of county government had better bring a sleeping bag.The council may not even get to those issues till after midnight. For the record, 3 a.m. is the latest the council has labored in a legislative public hearing.So many people are expected to show up tonight to debate the merits of a bill to repeal the county's six fire districts and replace them with two new ones that the council plans to begin the hearing at 7:30 p.m., half an hour earlier than usual.

Saddened by suburban sprawl? Sick of storm water runoff? Depressed about shrinking wetlands?If the answer to any of these questions is yes, there will be plenty of time to consider possible solutions next month at the Annapolis Summit. The all-day conference on county land preservation will be held at the Annapolis Marriott Waterfront Jan. 14."People feel there is too much random growth and it isn't planned to complement the community," said event organizer Anne Pearson, who runs the Annapolis Alliance for Sustainable Communities, a preservation group.

Howard County's on-again, off-again farmland preservation program is about to undergo another metamorphosis.During the first incarnation -- from 1980 to 1988 -- county officials said there were too few participants. During the second incarnation -- 1989 to 1991 -- they said there were too many. In 1993, they hope the number of applicants will be just right.But no one knows for sure because the county is changing the rules for admission to the program, to be more selective when purchasing easements.

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman probably never expected the first veto of his six years in office to involve a land use bill, particularly one that he was compelled to seek by state law. But that's what happened, and between now and Monday it's up to his administration to pick up the pieces of what should have been a no-brainer - a local ordinance to preserve farmland and open space in the western end of the county. First, a bit of history. Remember concern over septic systems and the health of the Chesapeake Bay?

As President of the Howard County Chapter of the Homebuilders Association of Maryland (HBAM), I would like to respond to Howard County Executive Ken Ulman's recent veto of County Council Bill 37, the growth tier map ("Ulman vetoes land preservation bill," Dec. 16). Members of HBAM, the farming community and a broad coalition of citizens worked closely with the County Council to craft a tier map that would continue to support the successful Density Exchange Option (DEO) program, which has led in part to the preservation of more than 21,600 acres of land in agricultural easements and thousands of additional acres preserved under environmental and other easements.

A battle over the future of the closed Chestnut Ridge golf course in Lutherville is continuing, with the company that bought the property now suing the Baltimore County Council over its decision to limit the land's development potential. In a lawsuit filed last month in Baltimore County Circuit, CR Golf Club LLC, which has ties to Timonium developer Cignal Corp., claims council members made an unfair land-use decision this summer that limited the number of homes that can be built on the approximately 230-acre property off Falls Road.

What a lovely spot for a veto. Clark's Farm in Ellicott City spreads out on 540 acres along Route 108, where cattle roam the pastures and where Humpty Dumpty, Willie the Whale, Little Red Riding Hood and other characters from the old Enchanted Forest theme park have found second homes. It's also the former home of the late state Sen. James Clark Jr., the father of Maryland's agricultural land preservation program. County Executive Ken Ulman chose the location this month to spike a piece of County Council legislation dealing with development rights on rural property - such as Clark's Farm, which has been in preservation since the 1980s.

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.

After reading the newsletter recently published and distributed by the Sparks Glencoe Community Planning Council, the letter to the editor by Kirsten Burger, (Oct. 11, "Councilman Huff's CZMP decisions only benefit 'chosen few'") in not accurate and unfair.. After reading the newsletter recently published and distributed by the Sparks Glencoe Community Planning Council and the letter to the editor by Kirsten Burger, (Oct. 11, "Councilman Huff's CZMP decisions only benefit 'chosen few'")

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley and Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan are urging Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to restore recent cuts to land preservation programs. The two Democrats, both widely expected to challenge Ehrlich in 2006, wrote a letter to their Republican rival yesterday expressing concerns over funding reductions to Program Open Space, Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation, Rural Legacy and GreenPrint. "Any efforts you may undertake to protect the Bay will be undermined unless full funding is restored to the State's land preservation programs," the letter read.

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.

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]