The issue of Howard property owners? rights emerged as residents challenged a bill on how ? and who ? should determine the size of tenant houses on farmland.
“We want to maintain the rights we have,” Richard Nessif, a Woodbine farm owner, told the County Council at Monday night?s public hearing.
The bill that brought mixed reactions from farmers would expand the duties of the Agricultural Land Preservation Board to allow it to determine if a proposed tenant house, where farm employees live, is an “appropriate size.”
The board already reviews the buildings? locations and effect on farm operations.
The County Council decided to table the proposal because it needed more time to review the issues.
The bill intends to curb abuses of the agricultural preservation program.
“The goal is to keep people utilizing the [preservation] rights as they were intended and not to try to get something they are not entitled by calling it something else,” said Joy Levy, administrator of the county?s agricultural land preservation program.
The proposal would affect roughly 200 properties, which is nearly 16,000 acres, in the agricultural easement program, Levy said.
“We think it?s fair and reasonable and appropriate,” J.G. Warfield, chairman of the county?s Agricultural Land Preservation Board, told the council.
Most of those who testified agreed with another, less controversial part of the measure, which would allow those who work part time at the farm to live in the tenant house.
But whether the county should impose a house-size limit remained an issue. The state recently began adding a restriction of 2,000 square feet for tenant houses, Levy said.
Joan Becker, a real estate lawyer and horse barn owner, said the agriculture board?s duties should not include determining size, and the language takes away rights of landowners.
Grace Kubofcik, co-president of the county?s League of Women Voters, said the group supports the measure but suggested the county include some size criteria for the tenant house.
She also asked the council to consider requiring the Agricultural Land Preservation Board to submit a biannual report to the council on how many the number of farm tenant houses on preservation property.
