A buyer cross-shopping the Southern Lancaster County and northern Baltimore County border market often has two browser tabs open at once: one for a farm outside Oxford or Quarryville in Pennsylvania, one for a farm near Monkton or White Hall in Baltimore County. Both listings mention a preservation program. Both use the word "preserved" as though it settles the question of what the buyer is actually getting. It doesn't.
Pennsylvania's Clean and Green program (Act 319) and Maryland's agricultural easement programs sound like the same idea wearing two different names. They are not. One is a tax election a landowner can walk away from. The other is a permanent surrender of development rights that no future owner, including the buyer looking at that listing right now, can ever undo. Confusing the two doesn't just cost a buyer a few points of due diligence. It changes what the land is worth, what it can become, and what the person after them will be able to do with it.
A Tax Break vs. a Deed Restriction
Act 319, the law behind Clean and Green in Lancaster, Chester, and York Counties, is a preferential tax assessment. It lets a qualifying farm, ten acres or more in most cases, get taxed on its agricultural use value instead of its fair market value. That's a real savings, and it's why so much farmland across southern Lancaster County carries the designation. But the covenant is exit-able. A landowner can voluntarily pull out of Clean and Green simply by notifying the county assessor by June 1 of the year before the tax year they want to leave. Leave early or breach the covenant by developing the land, and the penalty is a rollback tax: up to seven years of the difference between what was paid under Clean and Green and what would have been paid otherwise, plus 6% simple interest per year. It's a real cost. It is not a legal bar. The land itself was never permanently prevented from being developed. The tax break just made staying agricultural the cheaper option for as long as the owner wanted it to be.
Baltimore County's preservation programs work on the opposite principle. When a landowner sells an easement through the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation (MALPF), Baltimore County's own program (running since 1994), or the state's Rural Legacy Program, they give up development rights permanently. The Foundation's own application language is direct about what that means: sell the easement and you voluntarily give up your rights in perpetuity to develop the farm for any purpose other than agriculture and forestry. That restriction is recorded on the deed. It transfers to every subsequent owner. There is no June 1 notification that undoes it, no rollback tax that buys your way out. MALPF alone protects 24,719 acres in Baltimore County, and combined with the county's own program and the Rural Legacy Program, the county has permanently protected more than 70,000 acres of farmland, waterfront, stream valleys, and natural land, consistently placing it among the top ten counties in the country for land preservation.
Here's how the two mechanisms actually compare for a buyer trying to understand what they're purchasing:
| Pennsylvania Act 319 (Clean & Green) | Maryland MALPF / Baltimore County Easement | |
|---|---|---|
| What it changes | Property tax assessment only | Legal development rights, recorded on the deed |
| Can it be reversed | Yes, by notice to the county assessor or by breach | No, the restriction is permanent |
| Cost to exit | Rollback tax: up to 7 years plus 6% annual interest | Not applicable; there is no exit |
| Applies to future owners | Restriction can lapse if the current owner exits | Restriction binds every future owner automatically |
Why the Piney Run Approval Matters to Anyone Not Buying That Farm
This isn't an abstract distinction. On August 19, 2026, Maryland's Board of Public Works approved funding for the Land Preservation Trust to acquire a 48-acre permanent conservation easement in the Piney Run Rural Legacy Area in western Baltimore County. The easement protects farmland, forestland, and stream buffers feeding the watershed for Loch Raven Reservoir, one of the sources of drinking water for the Baltimore metro area. That parcel is now permanently out of the development pool. Not taxed differently. Out.
Piney Run is one of five state-designated Rural Legacy areas in Baltimore County, alongside Coastal, Gunpowder, Long Green, and Manor, each administered by a local land trust such as the Long Green Valley Conservancy or the Manor Conservancy. Every acre those trusts close off is a permanent subtraction from the county's supply of land that could ever be rezoned or subdivided. A buyer who isn't purchasing an eased parcel still feels this. Land near a Rural Legacy area tends to stay rural longer, by design, because the county is actively and permanently narrowing the corridor where anything else could happen.
What the Per-Acre Price Is Actually Telling You
This mechanism shows up directly in current asking prices. As of August 2026, farms listed for sale across Baltimore County are averaging roughly $64,586 per acre. Properties marketed specifically as hobby farms, smaller acreage packaged with a house, barn, or riding facilities, are averaging closer to $112,880 per acre, nearly double.
That gap isn't about soil quality or location. It's a direct readout of which acres still carry development rights and which don't. A large tract already under a MALPF or county easement is priced close to its agricultural production value, because that's legally the only value left in the dirt. A smaller hobby farm often includes a retained residential lot, a piece the original easement seller was allowed to carve out and keep unrestricted under MALPF's lot release rules, and that lot is priced like any other buildable residential parcel in the county. Two properties can sit a mile apart with wildly different per-acre prices, and the difference has nothing to do with the land's condition and everything to do with whether its development rights still legally exist.
A Pennsylvania farm enrolled in Clean and Green doesn't split this way, because its development potential was never permanently extinguished. The per-acre price on a Clean and Green farm still carries some latent option value: the possibility, however costly, that a future owner develops it and pays the rollback tax. That option has a price, even if the seller and buyer never discuss it directly. Comparing a per-acre number from a Baltimore County easement farm to a per-acre number from a Chester County Clean and Green farm without accounting for this is comparing two different kinds of asset that happen to look similar on a spreadsheet.
What This Means at the Table
For a buyer moving between the two states, the practical step is simple but easy to skip: find out which category a listing actually falls into before getting attached to it. A Clean and Green enrollment shows up in county tax records and can be exited. A MALPF, county, or Rural Legacy easement shows up as a recorded deed of easement and cannot be. Ask whether any residential lot was retained at the time the easement was sold, since that's often the only part of a Maryland farm with real future building potential. Ask whether the Pennsylvania farm has ever triggered a rollback event, since that changes both its tax history and its price logic going forward.
This is the kind of detail that rarely shows up on a listing sheet and almost never gets explained clearly to a buyer moving across the state line for the first time. Working with someone licensed in both Pennsylvania and Maryland, who can read a deed of easement the same way they read a Clean and Green enrollment, is the difference between understanding what you're buying and finding out the hard way at resale.
A Few Direct Questions
Can a Baltimore County preserved farm ever be un-preserved? No. Once MALPF, the county, or a Rural Legacy trust holds the easement, the restriction runs with the land permanently and binds every future owner.
If a farm has a retained lot, can a buyer create a new one later? No. Retained lot rights, if any exist, were fixed at the time the original easement was sold. A current owner can't carve out an additional unrestricted lot after the fact.
Is Pennsylvania's Clean and Green the same level of protection as Maryland's programs? No. Clean and Green is a tax assessment a landowner can exit by paying rollback taxes. Maryland's easement programs are permanent legal restrictions with no exit option.
If you're comparing farms on both sides of the Pennsylvania and Maryland line and want a clear read on what a specific listing's preservation status actually means for its future, Clark Land & Properties can walk through the deed, the tax record, or the easement language with you before you make an offer. Schedule a free consultation to get the full picture before you fall in love with a number that isn't telling you the whole story.
