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Our precious Agricultural Reserve is at risk. Development incursions and too many exceptions to the rules are chipping away at the land. Acre by acre our farmland and open spaces are disappearing.
The property at 21121 Beallsville Road, Dickerson, MD owned by Malsama Corporation has 840 acres; Benning & Associates have been representing the owners (whose identity they refuse to disclose, but who are commonly known to be Saudis). They propose a clustered development of 31 residential lots on Peach Tree Road by Whites Store Road in Boyds. The average sized lot will be 3.78 acres. Two other large lots will be kept as farmland.
There is great concern in the community about a number of issues:
- The impact on our well water
- Increased traffic on rustic roads
- Increased demands for services
- Clash of those living a rural life with those moving out from the city/suburbs
- Impact on wildlife displaced by the development, especially migratory songbirds
- A negative impact on the Agricultural Reserve, which was formed precisely to avoid this kind of development
- The gradual degradation of our beautiful open spaces
Please leave your comments and suggestions as to how we can best work with the landowner to preserve the land.
Saw your signs today while driving along Peach Tree rd to visit my dentist. My wife and I frequently bike along Peach Tree. It’s one of our favorite roads… just the way it is. The last thing we need is more McMansions and more traffic and more impatient drivers crowding these small country roads.
There are plenty of existing houses for sale in the Poolesville area. Why do we need more? How about we help sell the ones we have before diminishing everyone’s property value by stuffing more houses into what’s supposed to be an Ag reserve.
This site looks great and so do the signs! We will be blasting members on this with on link/petition. I wish we could determine ownership of the property! We have a buyer and would like to express our concerns to them and not to those profitting from the development of the land.
Thanks for all this good work !
Caroline Taylor
Montgomery Countryside Alliance
As a long time resident of the county and active in agriculture the efforts to block this community enters into a dangerous precedent. I am not saying that I am in favor of it, but to take away a landowner’s vested legal rights is wrong. If the goal is to block the community, then the laws should be changed. When a group of individuals can ban together to bar another from enjoying rights protected by law, where does it stop? When can a group ban together to tell the 35% of Americans that are statistically obese that you cannot eat fast food because it puts undue strain on our healthcare system? Or that you cannot drive a historic car, because it does not have the emissions equipment that is protecting our environment today? There is a solution, ban together and buy the lots. The can be retired under the Building Lot Termination Program, referred to as the BLT Program. As Americans we have legal rights as individuals and landowners, and they deserved to be protected, not taken away by any other action than a change in the law.
Someone stole my sign. How low can people get? I put a protest sign out in front of my property and someone has made off with it. What about freedom of expression?
WOLF IN SHEEPS CLOTHING –
The owners of this property (known locally as ‘the Saudis’) and their hired representatives (accountants, PR consultants and planners) have carefully crafted a plan that poses as pro-Agriculture, but is nothing more than a suburban subdivision, designed to maximize developers return on investment.They plan to get this through, then ‘bid’ subdivisions to developers.
What is wrong with that? Don’t they have the right to develop their land?
Look at their proposal:
- The proposal for a 31 home mega-cluster results from the largest undeveloped land parcel in the county, concentrating all the development rights in a cluster of unpresecedented density in the Ag reserve.
- This property, if owned by three farmers (each with 200-300 acres) would not be permitted to achieve this density due to soils limitations. The mega cluster that is being requested by the Saudis, if granted, would be a privelege not extended to other county farmers.
- The development is completely inappropriate to the land – with water use, septic, traffic and density all at unprescedented levels in the Ag Reserve. Adjoining communities are very concerned.
- The development places five new intersections and 13 properties with raodways frontage along a short distance of Peach Tree Road along one of the counties prized Rustic Roads, in an area known for the scenic beauty, but already marred by overdevelopment.
- The development as proposed has been placed to avoid any visual impact or inconvenience to the owner of the property. Give me a break.
- Those who moved out here, came to avoid exactly this kind of development. We live here and will be here for a long time. Neither the owners, nor their hired representatives do.
The goal of this development should be to allow the owner to achieve a development of their property within the constraints of the land while preserving agriculture AND the agricultural community. This will require a study of alternative sites, site limitations, possible transfer mechanisms, and a balance between the full development of the property and all practical limitations.
These comment have been communicated to the owners representative and ignored. Please let the county know that the current plan, once received by the county, should be rejected. See the TAKE ACTION portion of this site.
TRAFFIC!!!!! I had to catch a Marc train this morning, and it took 20 minutes to go less than 2 miles on Barnesville road- and I saw my train rolling by before I could even get to the train station and so I missed my appointment. I was envisioning yet another half mile of backup with the cars belonging to the additional 31 houses the developers want to build…
This kind of backup is what happens when development occurs without considering the existing infrastructure. Witness the extreme problems with Clarksburg.
We have small, winding, country roads that are meant to serve small numbers of residences and farms. This is the country. Please don’t bring the suburbs out to us.
In addition to the extra traffic Anne mentioned, what about Barnesville MARC station? The parking lot late in the morning is already quite full. I don’t think it’s beyond reason to assume at least two cars per household, so with 31 new houses, that’s over 60 cars that may need to commute.
Even if only 1/3rd of them decided to take the MARC train (after all, it’s RIGHT there), that’s 20 more parking spaces gone. That means if you’re not on the train by 7am, you’re probably not getting a parking space. Where will the overflow parking go? Will they mow down more trees to make room for more parking, or will people just park along Barnesville Rd?
There’s plenty of housing available in the Ag reserve, especially with the new “Preserve” development (ha ha) in Poolesville, and with the soon to be built “Blightwell Crossing”. Why do we need even more homes?
(How ironic is it that the websites for both of these developments showcase the very countryside that will be destroyed when they’re build?)
yes i totally agree with what people are saying about TRAFFIC!!!! its bad enough out here we do NOT need another development out here clogging what is already clogged! exactly poolesville is already become to populated as it is! buy there where its already going to be developed! BUY older ones and REUSE RESTORE whatever happened to this GOING GREEN!!! why cant developers do that! Im 27 years old and i dont understand how is this going to preserve or help the country living lifestyle! bringing fast paced individuals into a slow paced community HUH! WHAT??? it doesnt make any sense! i thought this waz agriculture reserve, a zone of one house per 25 acres!
Tom,
Great points! Besides, notice how these people scream protecting country living….but their OWN homes are development just as much as Barnesville Oaks. Who knows how many trees were chopped down so THEY could build their homes and THEIR farms. So, if they really want to protect the *country side*, perhaps THEY should leave alongside the Barnesville Oaks development.
Joe, have you been out here recently? Do you even live out here? The majority of the homes in the Ag reserve are older. Moreover, there are laws protecting the development of new structures in the Ag reserve; each house must have at least 25 acres associated with it. Their proposed cluster, while it has some precedent, represents a potentially serious problem for the very spotty infrastructure out here.
Examples:
(1) When we have droughts, our wells dry up. Add 31 homes to the mix, some of whom no doubt will have swimming pools, jacuzzis, and will want to water their lawns – big problem.
(2) Our roads are small and winding, 2 lanes at best, 1 to 1.5 lanes mostly. Already the morning traffic jam is miles long – there are simply not enough roads to service the existing homes.
(3) Because there is heavy agricultural usage out here, there are tractors and horses on the roads. Call me prejudiced, but if you get suburban influxes of people who are impatient and want to go fast, you are asking for accidents.
(4) To my knowledge, no impact studies have been done. It’s one thing to build one or two houses on a lot. It’s quite another to build a small town.
(5) While Tom indicates the owner’s legal right to develop – and he is correct – in fact, the owner is absent and no one has been able to locate or identify him/her/them. Do they even KNOW that there is a controversy? I expect they would be quite interested to know how poorly their representatives are portraying their interests. No, the people who are so keen on seeing this project put through are the developers who stand to profit.
(6) Pursuant to (5), because no one has been able to contact the owners, offers of land purchase and proposals to put the land into conservation easement have not been possible. Are the developers the roadblocks keeping us from communicating with the owners? I don’t know. But it’s mighty weird that we can’t even get a name.
I’d like to direct this comment to Tom.
This isn’t a case of people “banning” (sic) together to block a perfectly legal option for landowners. The law for the Agricultural Reserve is quite clear that there is to be no subdivision under 25 acres. The Barnesville Oaks plan proposes 30 or the 32 lots to be between 1 and 3 acres each. This is in direct opposition to the purpose of the Ag Reserve.
Moreover, permission to build is contingent on several factors, such as impact on traffic and water supply. Expressing concern over whether or not the aquifer can support thirty new wells is a far cry from prohibiting fast food. We’re talking apples and cheeseburgers.
So this picture you’re trying to paint of a bunch of curmudgeonly fussbudgets just doesn’t pan out. The reasons we’re opposed to this development are reasonable and legitimate.
Drew and others -
While I do not support the development, I do support the property owner’s rights. The owner is allowed to build 1 house per 25 acres, and that is what he is doing. He is clustering the houses on 3 acre lots so he can preserve 2 huge chuncks of land (maybe even for the migratory song birds) – the County allows this, and this is a good thing if you ask me, only I would rather they be on 2 acre lots to preserve more land.
The heavy traffic on Barnesville Road, which I travel every day to get my kid to school, is coming from up north. If that is a problem, then you should be protesting those commuters which are trying to avoid I-270.
I bike and spend a lot of time in the ag reserve. I live on its border on an old farm property. I do not want to see the development, but I believe it is the owner’s right to develop the land in accordance with the County laws. I support the community in efforts offer a buyout to the owner or petition the County to buy the land from the owner (Program Open Space I think). Best of luck.
Steve -
I appreciate your view. What I want to make clear is that, the objection to the current proposal is that it is simply too many houses in one concentrated location, and alternates have not been adequately considerred. The community has been tring to engage the owners representatives in discussion of alternatives with no effect. Alternatives might include a better distribution of smaller clusters, or the reduction of total count through various mechanisms that compensate the owner.
The current plan will make the Peach Tree Road section of the Ag reserve look and work like a section of Potomac- not an Ag friendly place. The addition of this development will create a subdivision almost the size of Barnesville without any of the Civic infrastrucutre or sense of community.
A reasonable plan should be able to be accomplished with the proper level of community input, but the owner seems unwilling, and is instead steamrolling through the process.
What really bothers me is that this land is now owned by a company (who will not disclose their names…which is really eyebrow raising) who is located in the Netherland Antilles. They have no vested interest in keeping our cultural or rural heritage within the Agriculturual preserve. Of course they could care less if they plop 31 new septic systems right on top of our sole source aquifer. They have nothing to lose. And we have so much, not only as a community, not even as a county, but as a nation. When we let outsiders come in recklessly profit from our land, we will be left with something less valueable, and they will be gone.
Our county leaders really need to step up to the bat here. They could fail us miserably. And once its gone, its gone. (like the Mega Church Being proposed by the Korean Church that would forever change the Civil War Vista and Sugarloaf Mountain) I guess it boils down to this: 1) do we care enough about it as citizens to motivate the politicians, and 2) Are the politicians farsighted enough to see the impact of this?
Although this hasn’t directly happened to me, I’m growing more and more concerned about a smaller issue of this whole thing. As Rachel said up above, people are going around stealing signs and I’ve heard that she’s not the only one that its happened to. I also heard that this matter has been reported to the police, but so far I don’t see them doing much. Either I’ve missed something or the cops have gotten a bit lazy.
Right now, I’m trying to consolidate some hard data or evidence against whoever is doing this to present a more concrete case to the authorities in the hopes that it might give them a jump start. If anyone has any info in this, please let me know through my email at AdamSW007@aol.com.
I agree completly with Pamela. Let’s tell our government to stop this right now and right here.
Caroline Taylor and I, along with a host of others, were deeply involved 15 years ago in the Saudi effort to develop a facility under roof larger than the Pentagon on the old polo grounds that the Muldoon family owned at the intersection of Hughes and River Roads. They would have imported Muslim families and students daily down River Road from as far east as Annapolis, would have piped (and drained dry) water from Poolesville, five miles away [a sole source acquifer], and abridged 12 or more federal, state, county, and or local regulations/laws/ordinances on site plans, zoning, historic preservation, conservation, planning, land use, water, and so forth. The Saudi failed in this effort to build an Islamic academy, with adjacent housing and religious instruction buildings, because a full 400+ individuals in the area actively combined to resist the sophisticated Saudi media, lobbying, government relations effort that they mounted. The project ultimately came to a vote in Poolesville, and the agreement by the Commissioners with the Saudis was overturned in a landmark vote of the citizens.
There are major parallels with that battle herein: huge properties owned by foreign citizens, who will never see the negative consequences of their actions, a complete disregard for the environmental consequences of their actions, a complete disregard for the intelligence, tenacity and capacity of their environmental opponents (the called us in Arabic “country bumpkins’), and an unwillingness to back down or negotiate with their neighbors. As a result, they had to be defeated at the ballot box.
We don’t have that luxury here, nor do we have a government entity that is directly beholden to us, as we did the Poolesville commissioners, who were swept aside and replaced in the next election by others who better represented the will of the people. Persuading Park and Planning that this is an appropriate project will take like numbers of crusaders against it, superb documentation, and a willingness to pack each hearing room every single time, no matter how inconvenient the time! However, we could easily lose this battle if we let it get to a hearing at all. The best time to stop this is before the official hearing(s) take(s) place, by overwhelming evidence of opposition, which is about the only thing that Saudi national developers understand: a poor return on their investment. If they believe that the citizens of the Ag Zone will fight them with every asset possible, and continue that fight in perpetuity until they are defeated, they are likely to retire with poor grace, but retire they will. It would not be justified in a business sense to continue.
The same situation occurred on Partnership Road, when Foud El Hibri attempted to turn 78 open acres atop a hill into a “premier Polo facility” that would be open with lighted activity as much as 20-22 hours of the day, in a location that could be seen in three directions for as much as 4.5 miles. He was defeated, but it took four years, and required the neighbors to combine forces, spend money, and hire a fine local outdoor lighting expert (Scott … of St. Peter’s), involve Margaret Chapman of the League of Woman Voters, the Sierra Club, the Audobon Naturalist Society, the Issac Walton League, etc. We had to hire certified expert witnesses who were arborists to prove that El Hibri was planning on cutting down a true forest without noting its existence on the plans, we had to haul our attorney Bill Roberts out the site, along with our then County Council Representative Nancy Dacek, and the Planning Board forestry official (since removed from office) to videotape that individual in front of the forest attempting to describe what the county and state definitions of a forest were, and why what she was looking at was not on the plans that she had approved and why it was not a forest. Needless to say, that was a significant piece of evidence when shown to the Planning Board, along with over 650 slides that were given to the Planning Board to show them that what they had approved was not what they were shown by the proposed developers. (QUERY: have you already done the same? Ii.e. checked the planning documents with the real property in terms of walking it to ensure that what should be protected actually is listed on the site plans?)
Ironically, Montgomery County currently has a forest conservation law as well as a horse property control and facility use law solely because of our lobbying efforts to prevent El Hibri from building his facility. From struggle can come good government, almost by accident, which was exactly what happened here. The land is still open, in farming, the mama fox and her kits are still safe, as are their grandkits; the hedgerow habit still makes perfect shelter for migratory birds to drop down and replenish themselves as they fly back and forth from the Artic or South America, and our riders, hikers, bikers, orienteers, scramblers, and country people can still enjoy this loverly property alongside a county-owned north-south stream that connects with the Potomac. Equally importantly, the night sky near neighbors is not replete with light, neighbors as far away as 4.5 miles are not hit with a wall of light on their horizon, noise from tractor trailer loads of polo ponies won’t droan for 20+ hours a day, and major polo, eventing, and other money-making events won’t clog our rustic roads dozens of times throughout the year. As important, run off from up to 170 horses stabled on 44 open acres con’t contaminate those key stream branches and surrounding wells!
There is a price to be paid for this advocacy, however, as the organizers MUST involve a larger group to carry the burden, or burn out can harm family relations. The cost of opposing a well-healed opponent need not be big, as the two examples cited above has shown, but many volunteers working together are needed. Petitions are important, but testimony has to be coordinated, everyone must involve their friends and neighbors, and we must be prepared for yet another long battle. The good news is that the united citizenry usually succeeds! Saving the Ag Zone is a constant battle, but it is well worth the effort. All of my students, my equines, and the wild crittters at Equine Therapy Associates thank you for the fine effort that you have already made. Without it my students would never know a true rural area! Thank you. Carol Rae Hansen, Ph.D., Director, Equine Therapy Associates.