Anne Arundel inches toward goal of preserving 20,000 acres of agricultural land

With a vote Monday night, the Anne Arundel County Council moved closer to a goal it’s had since the 1990s: preserving 20,000 acres of agricultural land from development.

The council voted to approve the sale of development easements on four southern Anne Arundel farms to the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation, a state program that operates in partnership with county governments. The easements bring the county’s total to more than 15,000 acres of preserved farmland through various programs.

An easement allows the landowner to stay on the property and continue using it — but they’ve sold the rights to develop the land in perpetuity.

“It’s kind of a unique idea to think you can buy an interest in the property and not the whole thing,” said Michael Stringer, the agricultural and woodland preservation program manager in the county’s Office of Planning and Zoning.

Three of the farms are in Lothian, one of 64.6 acres, one of 55 acres and one of 110.5 acres. The fourth is 60 acres in West River.

The easements make economic sense for the property owners, Stringer said, because of the opportunity cost of not selling to housing developers.

The easement programs also allow landowners to get some value out of their property before, for example, passing the farm on to the next generation, Stringer said. It can take the county “years” to reach deals with landowners.

“It’s a big commitment these families make,” Stringer said.

Stringer said he couldn’t disclose exactly how much the county would pay for each property because of ongoing negotiations, but noted that the four easements would cost about $3 million combined, with the state paying about $2 million and Anne Arundel County paying the remaining $1 million.

County officials said the money to purchase the easements is already in the Office of Planning and Zoning’s approved capital budget, so it will not cost the county any additional funds.

In an interview Monday, County Executive Steuart Pittman said the easements make good economic sense for local governments too.

It would be “very expensive,” he said, for the county government to buy the land and convert it into parkland or keep it undeveloped. The easements are a cost-effective way to save green space.

“When you maintain those areas as agricultural and rural, you don’t have to invest as much county money in them,” Pittman said, adding that rural properties often don’t have county water or sewer infrastructure and that less-dense areas require fewer police officers and firefighters.

Most of Anne Arundel County’s farmland exists in smaller plots, Stringer said. Older farms have been “carved up” to the extent that the median farm size in the county is just 25 acres.

“Those are kind of our whales, when it’s a farm over 100 acres,” Stringer said.

Pittman acknowledged the challenge. He said setting the preservation goal at 20,000 acres made sense, but it might be a “heavy lift” to find another 5,000 acres to preserve.

“There is less and less opportunity,” he said.