Sharpsburg officials press county over Green Hill Farm easement; county says Maryland Environmental Trust enforces covenants

Town of Sharpsburg representatives pressed Washington County officials on Green Hill Farm and whether a Maryland Environmental Trust (MET) easement restricting commercial and residential structures had been breached, raising questions about who can enforce easement terms and whether county review processes need tightening.

The town representative, Russell, told commissioners the MET easement attached to parts of Green Hill Farm forbids new residential structures and limits commercial and industrial activities "other than farming, silviculture and horticulture." He said minutes and the easement language showed the property “shall never exceed 1” residential structure and asked the county to "tighten this process" so easement protections could not be circumvented by decisions elsewhere.

Jill Baker, Washington County director of planning and zoning, said the county maintains a GIS layer of recorded easements and that the county sent plans for Green Hill Farm to the Maryland Environmental Trust for review. "In this particular case for Green Hill Farm, we did send copies of the plans to the Maryland Environmental Trust. We let them know what was going on, and they did not see fit to find it to be against their easement," Baker said, adding MET inspected the property in 2024 and that inspection "came back clean."

Baker also distinguished between uses on the property. She told the commissioners the county had treated the venue there as a banquet or reception facility permitted under a special exception from the board of zoning appeals, not as agritourism, and that a state law change in 2025 had altered health-department requirements for permanent septic systems. "Now that that has been circumvented through this state law and the health department will no longer require them to have a septic system... there's nothing for the county in any of the approvals that we have to limit the number of events," Baker said.

Baker said the county issued a cease-and-desist order related to cabins that were being used as short-term rentals because campgrounds are not allowed in the parcel’s zoning district. She said the property owner complied, removed advertising and stopped renting the cabins, and "we have no evidence to support the fact that they were renting those facilities out" since then.

Russell said the town and local preservation advocates view MET easements as key protections around the Antietam battlefield and expressed concern that precedents could undermine long-standing conservation work. He told county officials the town’s remaining recourse could be litigation if easement covenants are effectively nullified by other approvals. "If we have to sue, I guess we'll have to because this is such a blatant violation of an easement," Russell said.

Commissioner Jeff Harvey and other commissioners said they saw a county interest in ensuring easements that protect the battlefield’s historic character are identified and defended. Baker and county staff agreed to provide MET contact information and to share the materials the county sent to MET during its review. Rural preservation administrator Chris Boggs was identified as an additional county contact who could help facilitate state-level discussion.

The county’s position, as described by Baker, is that enforcement of restrictive covenants in a MET easement is the responsibility of the Maryland Environmental Trust; the county can and does flag easements during plan review and notify the easement holder, but it does not itself enforce the private contract between a landowner and MET.

The exchange ended with county staff agreeing to supply Russell and Sharpsburg officials the documents and MET contact information they requested so town representatives can follow up directly with the trust.