By Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 25, 2005; B01
It took Bruce Johnson seven years to find enough affordable land for his 2,000-member Seneca Creek Community Church, which had outgrown its home in a Germantown shopping center. Because real estate prices are soaring in southern Montgomery County, the pastor of the 15-year-old church decided to move his congregation two miles northwest, to the edge of the county's 93,000-acre agricultural reserve, where land is abundant and not as expensive. Although development is sharply restricted -- most facilities are banned and anyone building a home has to have at least 25 acres -- places of worship are allowed. In October 2003, Johnson signed a contract to buy 105 acres at Brink and Wildcat roads for $3.9 million. All he needed to close was the county's agreement to extend water and sewer service to the property. Eighteen months later, Johnson has no deal. Instead, he has provoked a debate over the future of the agricultural reserve and whether projects the size of Seneca Creek belong there. Anxiety over plans for Seneca Creek and a 120-acre megachurch in the Germantown area have prompted county officials to consider new size restrictions in the reserve and other rural sections of Montgomery. The county planning board has proposed limiting churches and other so-called private institutional facilities to developing no more than 15 percent of their properties. For Johnson, who wanted to build not just a sanctuary but also a day-care center, classrooms, soccer fields and an outdoor amphitheater, the restriction would mean developing no more than 15.75 acres of the parcel. Members of the County Council said they expect to make some decisions next month after hearing from a task force of state and local officials they appointed to study the issue. "We have some competing priorities, and there is no black-and-white answer," council member Michael Knapp (D-Upcounty) said. "By the same token, one of the things that makes the upcounty portion of Montgomery County so special is the fact that we still have vast tracts of farming." "The reality is the only [available] land is not in the downcounty," said council member Steven A. Silverman (D-At Large). "We want to continue to encourage our religious and nonprofit organizations, but at the same time, we don't want to destroy our agricultural reserve. That requires a balancing act." For 25 years, Montgomery officials have shielded the reserve -- about one-third of the county's land -- from most development. A vast swath of green that runs across the northern and western edges of the county, it is home to more than 350 horticultural businesses and 500 farms that produce corn, soybeans, wheat and other crops. The agricultural area contributes $250 million to the local economy, Montgomery officials estimate. The county has extended water and sewer service to churches in the reserve, where homes generally operate on septic systems. But farm advocates worry that such improvements will attract more development. The task force has discussed urging the County Council to end the practice. As the amount of available land dwindles, neighboring counties are grappling with the same issue. Open-space advocates in Howard fear that with the eastern half of the county almost completely built out, protected rural land to the west will come under increasing pressure from developers. In Loudoun, the inventory of agricultural land has dropped from 195,000 acres in 1992 to 165,000. Officials have tried to preserve the remaining rural land by limiting development to one unit per 20 acres in some areas and one per 50 acres in others. But the county has been unable to enforce the rules since the Virginia Supreme Court invalidated them on procedural grounds. The issue has polarized the upcounty. At an April 13 public forum held by the task force -- composed of officials from the county Department of Environmental Protection, Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission and other agencies -- those who live in or near the reserve made passionate pleas for preservation. "In this 25th anniversary of the agricultural reserve, I hope you will act to preserve it and not to erode it," said Bonnie Bell, who lives near the sites proposed for the two megachurches. "This area was built to preserve agriculture, not to provide cheap land" for private institutional facilities, said George E. Lechlider, who owns a farm in Gaithersburg. Environmentalists said runoff from the large facilities could hurt watersheds. "We have a limited amount of space in Montgomery County to devote to providing habitats, to protecting our streams, to having agricultural lands, and this space was set apart by the county 25 years ago very specifically to protect these types of lands," said Steve Dryden, an environmental activist at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda. "From a religious perspective, we think that there's a biblical mandate to nurture creation, and we hope there can be a compromise on this issue, a way to come to a middle ground," Dryden said. Church leaders said they are being unfairly targeted. "They've held us hostage for about a year now," said John Cuzick, administrative pastor of Bethel World Outreach Church in Silver Spring, which has been seeking county approval to build on 120 acres in the agricultural reserve. "We're disappointed because it's a political game that is being played, and we happen to be pawns in this game." Church leaders also point out that there are few private institutions in the reserve: 17 so far. "There is no crisis that precipitates this change," said Johnson, of Seneca Creek. Last week, Johnson learned that the owners of the property he had sought are pulling out, unwilling to wait any longer for the county to make up its mind. He said he plans to look for another piece of land and continue his fight against the proposed restrictions. "This should have been an easy deal," he said. Church leaders also have accused the county of poor planning by not setting aside tracts of land for churches. "In Germantown, you can't put 90,000 people and assume that none of those people are going to want to go to church or a synagogue," Johnson said. Jeff Zyontz, chief of the countywide planning division, dismissed that argument. "You could say we didn't make space for McDonald's, either," he said.