Did you know that according to the 2010 MD Equine Census our county has 950 properties on which 4,500 horses reside comprising 10,200 acres? Our industry is the last hope for maintaining unsubsidized open space in Anne Arundel County at a time when grain farmers are leaving for areas where open land is more readily available (6,000 acres of grain farmland lost between 2002 and 2007 according to USDA Ag Census).
We horse people rallied in June 2012 and kicked off a campaign that resulted in exemption of ag buildings (including riding arenas and wineries) from an absurdly onerous building permit process. With help from the Anne Arundel County Farm Bureau we won that campaign with a new law that took effect July 2013.
Our county is still one of the only in the state where you need to hire and urban engineer instead of working with the staff at Soil Conservation for site plans for buildings, but our friends at both MD Department of Agriculture and MD Department of the Environment are drafting regulations today that should prevent Inspections and Permits from forcing this requirement on farmers.
While County Executive Leopold did attend our Horse Council Barbecue at Larking Hill Farm in Harwood in 2011 and supported our bill to exempt ag buildings from permits, he was unwilling to work with us to address the inconsistencies in the way farmers were being treated on erosion and sediment control issues. We look forward to appointment of a new county executive with a fresh perspective on these issues!
Please use this online forum to identify issues that you are having with county government. Also use it to network. If we decide that it's time for horse people to organize as we have in the past, we will use this forum to do it.
- Steuart Pittman
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