Assisting the Montgomery County Planning Department in launching a new small forest protection program that will link property owners that own existing forest with developers that need to meet an off-site forest retention requirement.
In response to intense development pressure that occurred throughout the 1980’s the State of Maryland passed the Forest Conservation Act in 1991. The Act established standards for local authorities to enforce forest preservation and planting in lands scheduled to undergo development and in sensitive areas (i.e.. nontidal floodplains, streams and their buffers, steep slopes, and critical habitats) identified in land use planning efforts. The Act requires developers to submit either a Forest Conservation Plan (FCP) or FCP Exemption application whenever certain development plans are required, and if a sediment control permit is needed for property that is 40,000 ft2 or greater in size (among other triggers). A FCP, among other things, indicates the limits of disturbance for the proposed project and how existing forested and sensitive areas will be protected during and after development.
In 1992 Montgomery County created their own version of the Forest Conservation Act, (i.e., The Montgomery County Forest Conservation Law, Chapter 22A of the County Code). Anyone subject to the County’s Forest Conservation Law must get an approved FCP exemption or FCP. The primary requirement of a FCP is a forest retention or forest planning requirement. This requirement can be met through: 1) planting or protecting forest within forest conservation easements on site, 2) purchasing credits from one of county’s forest mitigation banks, or 3) contributing to the county’s forest conservation fund, which funds the Reforest Montgomery program. Forest mitigation banks are the intentional preservation, restoration or creation of forests undertaken to provide credits that are sold to developers to meet afforestation or reforestation requirements. The Montgomery County Forest Mitigation Bank Program has a minimum size requirement of one acre for a parcel of land to be considered for forest mitigation credit.
Early this year Chapter 22A, the Montgomery County Forest Conservation Law, was amended to aid the county in achieving the goal of no net loss of forest within the county. One consequence of this amendment is the amount of forest that must be replaced compared to the amount of forest cleared has increased. Currently, there are very few forest mitigation bank credits for builders to purchase to meet their requirements. This is due to a recent amendment to the state Forest Conservation Law that temporarily eliminated forest banks comprised of protected existing forest. To expand the options for developers to meet their requirements, the Montgomery County Planning Department plans to launch a new “small forest protection program,” separate from the forest bank program, that will permit property owners that have approved forest mitigation areas as small as 0.5 acres, to permanently protect those areas and make them available for purchase by developers. Small off-site mitigation that protects existing forest is an option that could be well suited for builders seeking the approval for infill projects that are increasingly prevalent in the southern parts of Montgomery County.
The new small forest protection program will involve existing forests that range in size from 0.5 to 5 acres. Unlike the Forest Mitigation Bank program, it is envisioned that many of properties owners that may potentially qualify for the new program could be homeowners rather farmers and other individuals owning large acreage properties that are better suited for the forest bank program. There are several requirements that must be satisfied for forested land to be eligible for entry into the new program. The Montgomery County Planning Department will be marketing the program through a web page and seeks to have content developed for the web page that will clearly message the program and what the requirements are to qualify for the program. In addition, the department seeks to identify the properties and property owners within the county that would qualify for the program so that the individuals that own these properties can be made aware of the program.
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