PLENTY Spring 2020 Plenty Spring 2020-WEB | Page 5

The Ag Reserve Turns 40
B y r o yce hans o n
The fortieth anniversary of Montgomery County’s Agricultural Reserve is a time to celebrate its role
in the county, region, and nation as the best example of protecting a working agricultural landscape
within a growing metropolitan area. It has worked. The pioneering Transfer of Development
Rights system to protect the land and the equity of its owners is a national model .
W
hile the county
population has
grown from
600,000 in 1980 to over a million
today, the amount of land in the
Reserve only marginally increased.
However, over three-fourths of the
land actually farmed is now pro-
tected in perpetuity by easements
from development of more than
one residence for each 25 acres.
Most severe challenges to its
integrity have been repelled. These
include large-scale institutional
facilities and the zombie highway
concept that reappears about once
a decade to eat the brains of road
advocates until they realize they
are sitting on a red hot stove.
The Building Lot Termination
program was put into law in 2008
to ameliorate the effect of retained
development rights, which inflate
land values, inhibit entry of a new
generation of farmers, and at-
tract residential development that
is often unrelated to agriculture.
Scattered subdivisions built using
those rights threaten revival of
the “impermanence syndrome,” or
accelerated agricultural decline,
by fragmenting the critical mass
of farmland essential for the con-
tinuation of farming.
This is also a time for reflec-
tion on the future of the Reserve
and on the justification for reserv-
ing a third of the county for agri-
culture, land and water conserva-
tion, and cultural history. In 1980
when the County Council ap-
proved the Master Plan that estab-
lished the Reserve, I said they had
protected the “green lungs of the
county.” We were then but vaguely
aware of the inexorable pace of
climate change. The Reserve’s for-
ests and improvements in farming
practice have given it a central role
in carbon sequestration and in the
improvement of water quality of
the Potomac and Patuxent.
Early this year, in speaking to
the Montgomery County Histori-
cal Society, I indulged in a thought
experiment, imagining what the
Reserve might be like on its 100th
anniversary. Of course, I don’t
actually know what the Reserve
will look like in 2080. But there are
some things I do know. I know that
if the county enforces its ease-
ments in perpetuity, the land can
be protected so that it can be used
for agriculture and not preempted
for unrelated and invasive uses.
I know that as the region con-
tinues to grow, the Reserve will add
value to the quality of life for resi-
dents and businesses in the county.
It not only marks Montgomery as
environmentally unique; it is an
inspiring and beautiful comple-
ment to our great park system.
With its rustic roads, historic sites,
and for bikers, hikers, equestrians,
and environmentalists, it is a land-
scape to explore and cherish. For
the county’s students, it is a living
ecology curriculum. For historians
it has events to chronicle, struc-
tures, families, and communities
to interpret, and secrets to reveal.
I know that most of all, the
Reserve is and will be a source of
fresh local food and fiber. The kind
of farming done in the Reserve
will change because agriculture
is the most sensitive of industries
to consumer demand and tastes.
What is produced, how it is grown,
by whom, and the size of farms will
be in almost constant flux. One of
the great challenges to perpetua-
tion of farming is facilitating entry
of new generations of farmers—
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