Howard County hearing records variance request to adapt former Lisbon volunteer firehouse for Days End Farm programs

A petitioner representing Days End Farm Horse Rescue asked a Howard County hearing officer to admit exhibits and consider variances that would allow two small front-yard additions to a former 1958 volunteer firehouse so the building can be repurposed for education, training and a small souvenir/tack shop.

The hearing officer accepted the petitioner’s exhibit list (petitioner’s exhibits 1 through 5) into the record and reviewed procedural items; the record was later closed with no opposition entered on the transcript. The parties and witnesses described two proposed additions that require relief from the county’s 75-foot front-yard setback: a roughly 150-square-foot public vestibule at the building’s street-facing side and a separate bump-out on the building’s south side intended for storage and shop support.

Why it matters: the additions are intended to provide ADA-compliant access and to support Days End Farm Horse Rescue’s educational and rehabilitation mission without demolishing the existing structure. The site is directly adjacent to Days End’s primary facilities, and speakers said that the grade change between the properties, onsite septic infrastructure and an on-site stream mapped to a 500-year floodplain limit where additions can be located. Those physical constraints, witnesses said, make the proposed front-yard locations the practical choice for the needed access and storage.

Witness testimony and site details Douglas Tilley, vice president of…