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gage 2 March 2001 farmland preservation report 3y -right lot exclusions proposed for Maryland program - ontinued from page i nemorandum stated. While the change would not be retroactive, the wiginal owner of a district or easement property vould be allowed to alter the existing easement iocument to obtain the development rights if a 1- ;0 density had not already been reached through ;hild's lots. Pre - existing residences would count toward he 1 -50 base density. Total number of residences vould be determined only by each full 50 acres, with no cap, so that a 400 -acre farm could have a otal of eight homes. A 250 -acre farm could have We lot rights, but a 249 -acre farm would have .our. Among a list of benefits provided in the memo was the greater flexibility "to retain equity in the and which can be used as a selling point, if and when the property is conveyed to a subsequent owner, making the land more marketable." "Landowners would be able to use this as a marketing tool," Scheidt said during a task force >ubcommittee meeting. "The downside is that every lot will be developed, but is that so bad ?" Scheidt said he believed the proposed policy -hange would be "a definite improvement to the program. It will preserve more land." Scheidt said he believes more farmers will apply to the program if proposed changes are approved. Most benefits cited in the memo focus on simplifying the approval and administration of lot exclusions. Wally Lippincott, director of the Baltimore County program and a member of the Policy Review Committee that sent the proposal for- ward, strongly opposes the change. The issue of a preserved farm's marketability in terms of lot allowances, he said, "is opposite to the purpose of the program," and ease of administration is a secondary concern to assuring the greatest-pos- sible level of preservation. Lippincott, and counterparts Tim Blaser of Frederick County and Bill Amoss of Harford County, said a key piece of information is lacking in the proposed policy: how many lot exclusions have been approved under current law over the history of the program, and how that number would compare to the estimated number that would occur under the proposed policy. The Policy Review Committee memo shows the maximum number of units that could poten- tially be built under current regulations, but to date very few, if any, farms have requested a maximum number of child's lots. The actual number of lot exclusions approved by the Foundation is not known, according to Iva Frantz, of Foundation staff. "Nobody's had time to do that," she said. According to Lippincott, 18 lot exclusions have been approved in Baltimore County, fewer than one per year over the history of the program, now in its 23rd year. Other program administrators queried said they did not know how many had been approved in their counties. During the Feb. 20 Foundation board meeting, several program administrators from Maryland's Eastern Shore counties testified in support of the proposal. Tim Blaser of Frederick County said he is opposed to the change as written. In an interview, he said the program's current rules create "an awkward problem in policing, but this will guar- antee all these lots will be used as they are passed down," the most troublesome aspect of the pro- posed change, he said. Donna Mennitto, land preservation consultant and former program administrator for Howard County, said the current rules are not only diffi- cult to enforce, but are sometimes abused. She said she favored the proposal generally. "Nowadays, it has, nothing to do with keeping a kid on the farm.I think we have to move away from real estate rights that are attached to indi- viduals because in the practical world that's hard to enforce." Mennitto added a lower density, perhaps 1- 100, should be considered. please continue to page 3