Caroline County adopts agricultural land preservation fund; sets fee for solar on prime soils

Caroline County commissioners voted Tuesday to enact Legislative Bill 2025-011, creating an Agricultural Land Preservation Fund and requiring compensatory preservation contributions when solar energy generating stations, small-scale solar systems or energy storage devices are built on land containing Class 1 or Class 2 soils.

The measure, enacted after a fourth reading, establishes a new Chapter 75 in the county code and directs that money in the fund be used only to purchase development rights on agricultural land in Caroline County through agricultural preservation easements, including purchases made through the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation. A county staff member summarized the bill as creating “a fund to receive payments of compensatory preservation contributions to Caroline County when solar energy generating stations, utility scale, solar energy systems, small scale, and energy storage devices are developed on a parcel of land” containing high-productivity soils.

Why it matters: Commissioners and staff said the bill aims to protect prime farmland (Class 1 and 2 soils) by channeling mitigation payments into local land-preservation purchases rather than allowing development…