Carroll County staff outline state-driven changes to Forest Conservation Code

John Bowman, the county’s forest conservation and landscape specialist, told the Planning and Zoning Commission that recent state legislation requires Carroll County to revise Chapter 150 of its Forest Conservation Code.

“If you’re doing something on an area of 40,000 or greater, that the law applies to you,” Bowman said, summarizing the threshold that triggers Forest Conservation obligations. He told commissioners the state’s changes, drafted with input from conservation groups, expand what counts as a priority retention area to include habitat for forest-interior dwelling species, high-quality watershed forests, reservoir and wellhead protection zones, and state-defined priority urban forest.

Bowman said the newly mapped priority-retention areas cover roughly 60% of the county, which will increase the number of projects subject to enhanced review. He described newly required neighbor-notification steps that apply when a project proposes clearing at least five acres or 75% of an on-site priority forest, and explained the statute now requires local governments to issue written findings and justifications when they approve clearing in priority forest.

The staff presentation also highlighted specific changes that could materially raise mitigation obligations. Under the state changes, entire unforested stream buffers within a project area must be planted and reforested, which could multiply mitigation acreages beyond standard acre-for-acre replanting. Bowman said the bill also creates a limited judicial-review process for plan approvals.

On mitigation techniques, Bowman explained the county historically relied on planted forest banking but has not used retention banking (placing conservation easements over existing forest) and said the state allows a mix of banked and planted mitigation. Carroll County staff proposed diverging from the state in two places: allowing acre-for-acre credit in retention banks for afforestation obligations, and prohibiting use of retention banking as a substitute for reforestation when trees are actually cleared. "We weren’t in love with that scenario," Bowman said of the state’s half-bank/half-plant split.

Commissioners pressed Bowman about money and capacity. Staff said commercial forest-banking credits effectively dried up late last year and the county’s commissioners adopted a fee schedule in February; the proposed code would codify a fee-in-lieu as a last-resort option and create a county-administered forest conservation fund for reforestation if private bank credits are unavailable. Bowman said historical bank prices were about $18,000 per acre but market conditions have changed and the county benchmarked fees against neighboring jurisdictions.

Staff recommended several local adjustments beyond the state minimums, including raising the county’s applicability trigger from 20,000 to 40,000 square feet and tightening how agricultural and family-lot exemptions are substantiated (for farms, requiring Schedule F tax documents). Bowman flagged infrastructure projects such as airport grading and runway extension as potential county projects that could trigger sizable mitigation obligations.

The commission asked that staff return with clarifications, and Bowman said the draft changes were submitted to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in November; staff plans to bring the code amendments to the county commissioners on May 14 and noted the state’s effective/deadline expectations.

The commission took no public comment on the item at the Planning & Zoning meeting and then recessed into a work session to continue other business.