Conservation & Land Use/Zoning
Our Position on Agritourism
November 17, 2025
The following statement was issued the week of November 10, 2025 by four organizations who are involved in protecting and preserving the Ag Reserve, including SCA. Please feel free to distribute it. And please consider commenting on it in the section below.
Centering Agriculture in Agritourism: A Joint Position Statement on Agritourism
11/3/2025
Montgomery County Farm Bureau, Montgomery Agricultural Producers
Montgomery Countryside Alliance and Sugarloaf Citizens Association
In 1980, Montgomery County enacted a visionary solution to stem the loss of farms and farmland. It created the Agricultural Reserve, which has been lauded as the nation’s most innovative and successful farmland protection effort. Montgomery County has reaped the benefits of this initiative every day. The Ag Reserve has preserved farms and farming opportunities; it enables local food and grain production; it protects water and air quality for the region; and it provides an array of outdoor recreational opportunities for the entire County. The farms of the Ag Reserve contribute $281 million annually and support over 10,000 jobs in the County.
Maryland lost an average of 2,400 acres of farmland each year between 2017 and 2022. Montgomery County’s land use policies have helped stem the loss of producing farms here, but maintaining thriving farms requires care.
The Ag Reserve remains one of the County’s best ideas – an achievement many other jurisdictions envy. The fundamental purpose of the Reserve—to protect thriving farms—will be strengthened through enhanced connections between producing farms and residents in the County’s urban and suburban areas.
Agricultural tourism is thriving in the Ag Reserve. Many farmers are enhancing revenue by building new markets for their farm products. For decades, thousands of visitors have flocked to Ag Reserve farms to shop at farm stores, for “pick your own” produce, harvest festivals, wineries, breweries, cideries, corn mazes, educational farm tours, animal visits, farm-to-table dinners, and equestrian events. Agritourism connects consumers with local farms not only for purchasing local products but also to build greater understanding about how food is produced and why it is important to support a strong local food system.
A Fragile Balance
Why then is the subject of agritourism becoming somewhat controversial? It’s simple: Some landowners (or land speculators) seek to profit from land planned and zoned as protected farmland by introducing commercial activities that are not associated with farming. Land in the Reserve has been zoned to ensure that it will remain reasonably affordable for farmers to lease or purchase. Business investors who are not farmers, if allowed to divert land from the primary use of farming, will attract other land investors with non-farming ideas. Providing for non-agricultural commercial uses of the Reserve is already driving up the cost of land for bona fide farmers, including, importantly, next 2 generation producers. Promoting competition for land from distinctly non-agricultural commercial uses does not support the Ag Reserve and the local agricultural economy. Rather, it undermines it.
Welcome to the new Royce Hanson Conservation Park in Dickerson
October 14, 2025
Kudos to Montgomery County, the Montgomery County Parks Foundation, and an advocacy group of County residents for creating the Royce Hanson Conservation Park at Broad Run.
This new 475-acre park at 21765 Club Hollow Road in Dickerson will celebrate farming and the Ag Reserve—through educational programs, interpretation of the area’s rich agricultural history, and the enjoyment of nature.
With trails and recreational opportunities for hikers, cyclists, and equestrians, there’s something for everyone.
Most important, the new park celebrates Dr. Royce Hanson—a true visionary—and the County policymakers that worked with him to create the Ag Reserve in 1980.
Born in Depression-era Oklahoma, Dr. Hanson grew up to become an academic, a public servant, author, urban planner, conservationist, and advocate for farming, wilderness, and outdoor recreation. He served two terms as Chairman of the Montgomery County Planning Board, first from 1972 to 1981, and again from 2006 to 2010. From 2009 to 2022, Dr. Hanson served on the Board of the Montgomery County Parks Foundation.
Thanks to his and the County’s commitment, the Ag Reserve—comprising a third of the county—has become a national model of agricultural preservation in a densely populated area.
The Montgomery Parks Foundation has launched a $100,000 fundraising campaign to enhance the park’s facilities and educational programming. You can donate via the Foundation’s website.
Power Line Project is a Bad Idea
December 5, 2024
A proposed high-energy power line extending 70 miles from the Baltimore area to Adamstown would threaten an estimated 4,000 acres of farmland, forests and wildlife habitats. It would also require permanent easements on dozens of farms and private properties to site hundreds of 140-foot-tall transmission towers.
SCA joins the Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick County governments, the Maryland Farm Bureau, Preservation Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and a host of regional environmental in opposition to the project. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in late November he had “grave concerns” about the project but has not yet opposed it.
We urge you to learn more online and at StopMPRP.com. MPRP stands for Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project.
Power lines are, of course, a necessary fixture of modern life. When they are justified, we support them and live with the eyesore. But the necessity of this one has been widely questioned. It will mainly provide power to the burgeoning data center industry in Virginia, and not Maryland homes and businesses. But Marylanders will help pay the estimated $424 million cost of the project.
The project also relies on outdated infrastructure. Experts consulted by StopMPRP say more sustainable and efficient alternatives are available.
There are larger issues at play, too. Maryland lacks a coherent long-term energy strategy that takes the environment, the well-being of residents, and climate change into consideration—even as demand for energy is expected to rise sharply over the next decade.
Montgomery County Council Approves Limited Camping in Ag Reserve
Updated August 12, 2024
The Montgomery County Council in late July approved a zoning ordinance that will allow some landowners in the Ag Reserve to host overnight guests in what will essentially be private campgrounds open to the public. The measure goes into affect August 19.
The new ordinance—called Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) 24-02—was approved by the 11-member Council after eight months of debate that ended in a compromise, scaled-down version of an earlier proposal. That proposal drew broad opposition from farmers and Ag Reserve groups, including SCA.
The measure as passed has the following allowances, limits, and restrictions:
• Campgrounds can be on working farms only. Thus, entrepreneurs thinking about buying land in the Ag Reserve solely to develop a private campground would not be permitted to do so.
• Landowners must submit plans for a private campground to the county for evaluation under “conditional use” rules. That means County officials will evaluate each proposal on its own merits and “conditions” may be imposed depending on the specific needs of the property and neighborhood.
• A property must be at least 25 acres to qualify for a campground.
• A campground can encompass only 10% of a property’s total acreage, or 5 acres, whichever is smaller.
• Campsites don’t have to be clustered in one area. If spread out, however, they still must comply with the 10% or 5-acre limit
• A campground must be 100 feet from any neighboring property line.
• Properties of 25 to 100 acres can have up to 5 sites for tent or RV camping, or temporary removable structures such as yurts or small cabin on wheels.
• Properties larger than 100 acres can have up to 10 such sites, of which only 5 can be for RV camping.
• No tents, RVs, or removable structures are permitted in a stream buffer or floodplain, and cutting down trees to create a campground is prohibited.
• Temporary removable structures cannot be larger than 200 square feet.
• Such structures cannot have heating or air conditioning systems, kitchens or bathrooms. RVs can have such amenities.
• Property owners are not required to provide separate bathrooms, bathing facilities, or cooking facilities. If they do, those facilities must meet existing county codes, including those for septic systems, and be approved by county authorities.
• Guests can stay a maximum of 3 nights only.
SCA Supports Proposed White’s Ferry Deal
April 29, 2024
After more than three years, a possible deal is in the works to reopen White’s Ferry. This is an unexpected and very promising development.
Before it stopped operating in December 2020, the ferry served as a vital and historic link between Virginia and northern Montgomery County for over 200 years. It was one of the oldest such car ferries in the country, the only remaining ferry running on the Potomac (of more than 100 that once operated), and the only river crossing in a 35-mile stretch between the American Legion Bridge and a bridge near Point of Rocks.
As such, White’s Ferry was an historic treasure as well as a functional service. Routine commuter and commercial traffic—between 600 and 800 cars a day—yielded benefits to both Virginia and Maryland communities.
Protecting the Sugarloaf Mountain Area
Updated January 6, 2024
On December 19, 2023, the Frederick County Council voted down a once-in-a-generation proposal to strengthen conservation and agricultural zoning on 19,700 acres in the southern part of the county.
The area in question in Frederick County is contiguous with Montgomery County’s Ag Reserve. It encompasses 3,400-acre Sugarloaf Mountain and an additional 16,300 acres to the east of the mountain all the way to I-270.
The vote came after a three-year process, which saw the Frederick County Council approve a comprehensive land-use plan—the Sugarloaf Mountain Treasured Landscape Management Plan—for the area in the fall of 2022. The Council struggled, however, to come to political consensus and agreement in 2022 and again in 2023 on an accompanying zoning ordinance—called an “overlay”—that would implement and enforce the plan’s land-use guidance.
That struggle occurred despite urging by Frederick County’s own planning commission and the Maryland’s Department of the Environment to approve the overlay.
In a nutshell, the debate pitted environmental and civic groups (including SCA) against developers, real estate interests, and business groups. The latter prevailed in a county long bent on loosely regulated growth.
The practical upshot is that the area’s existing zoning stays in place, with no updated conservation protections for natural resources, streams, trees or natural habitat— amid the known and unknown threats posed by climate change.
Importantly, that existing zoning largely prevents commercial and dense housing development without explicit permission from Frederick County authorities. But the failure of the Frederick County Council to enact the overlay opens up a path for developers and landowners to apply for zoning exemptions on a case-by-case basis.
Montgomery County's Sole Source Aquifer - The Good Gift
January 9, 2024
This article is excerpted from the Spring 2024 issue of Plenty Magazine. We present the initial portion of the article. You may then link to Plenty’s website to read the remainder of the piece, and see the charts and photos that accompany it.
“Our aquifer is the bloodstream for all farmers in the Agricultural Reserve. It’s what sustains us.”
Gene Kingsbury, Kingsbury’s Orchard
More often than not, when asked, folks in the D.C. metro region do not really have a fix on where the water that flows from their faucets comes from. Sure, residents and businesses know that they pay Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) for their water and sewage service, and they may know that the origin of their water is the mighty Potomac River. But as to the details—filtration plant operations, the infrastructure that delivers the water from plants to homes and businesses, what happens when there is prolonged drought, these bits are hardly known.
More mysterious to many is where roughly 25-30,000 homes, businesses and farm enterprises get their water from in the nearly one-third of Montgomery County that is wholly outside the WSSC service area by design. nd that if the story I aim to share in two parts.
Data Center Complex Proposed for Dickerson; We Need a Pause Until Proper Safeguards are Enacted
As of March 1, 2026
Major updates have surfaced regarding the environmental, water, and energy impacts of proposed data centers in Dickerson. Review the recent documents below and read SCA’s position on pending data center legislation in Montgomery County, Maryland. Then take two minutes to send a personalized letter to county officials calling for a temporary moratorium on data centers while stronger protections are finalized.
CRITICAL UPDATES
Read Our Letter on Data Center Zoning
Demand a Temporary Halt—Send Letter
Our Position on the Proposed Data Center Complex in Dickerson
Updated February 20, 2026
SCA supports a moratorium on the assessment and approval of data centers in Montgomery County until the County Council approves regulations that govern where and how data centers can be built, and how they operate. Our rationale for this position is explained at the end of this web post, which otherwise gives you background on the data center debate and a history of the Dickerson project to date. This is now a fast-evolving story. We’ll update you regularly. Please comment and get engaged. See here for information on, and to sign up to testify at, a February 24 public hearing on data centers. Our community’s involvement in this important development will make a difference.