Agricultural Uses
Current Situation
There has been lots of discussion going back years concerning what uses should be allowed on Agricultural-zoning land. While some want to restrict such land to traditional growing of crops and raising animals, other want to expand the uses to whatever is needed to allow the farmer to continue to own the land, even if it means detroying its agricultural use. This has included cell towers. breweries with large entertainment facilities, etc. In a notable example, Councilman Huff, in his final weeks in office, tried to advance what he called a "Right-to-Farm Bill" (as Bill 65-14 (tabled)). It mostly defined a bunch of non-agricultural activities to be allowed under the term "agricultural tourism", with the argument that they were agriculture-related to "generate economic growth", such as selling clothing, seasonal haunted houses, straw mountains (?), petting zoo, tours, playgrounds, picnis areas with rest rooms, gift shops, etc. While these all sound good, they are very hard to control, as we have found with other things. I called it the "Right-to-not-Farm Bill".
In fact, back in 2009, a group of citizens, farmers, county employees, experts, etc. met for months, beginning with an effort to better restrict Special Exceptions in RC2 that were destroying farm land and drafted recommendations. We also looked at the "Right-to-farm Laws" in other Counties and drafted one for Baltimore County. Although recommendations were made to the County Council, nothing ever came of this effort. In fact, later on, Bill 19-14 went directly against one of our recommendations.
Problem
Every newly conceived use must be dealt with by new legislation, usually rushed, resulting in some being allowed without adequate thought and limits.
Correction Needed
There needs to be a careful study to determine what additional "agriculture-tourism" and "enhanced agriculture" type activities should be allowed.
Agricultural tourism means those activities which attract people to farms for tourism purposes, thus nehacing their understanding and appreciation of agriculture while providing some income to the farmer. It's bizarre that the present code does not allow farmstead bed-and-breakfast facilities. During our 2009 effort, I tried to push this. There needs to be more such activities allowed, however, there needs to be strict limits. They must never supplant raising crops and animals as the primary activity or argued to be allowed to allow the farm to survive. A farm that can not survive without it should not deserve to continue.
Enhanced agriculture means going beyond the traditional growing of crops and animals to include processing and selling of those products on-site. Prigel's Creamery is a good example, something that I was heavily involved in to get the enabling legislaton drafted. There should be an all-encompassing Bill to allow such things, but it requires provisions such as:
- requirements on how much of the production must be from agricultural products produced on the farm itself or on nearby farms.
- limits on size of builings used exclusively for this purpose (with no variance allowed, as I got added to the Creamery bill).
- appropriate limits on hours of operation, selling of accessory items, etc. (Obviously, a winery should be able to sell a few cork-screws not made on the premises.)
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