A new bill introduced in the Montgomery County Council on Tuesday would allow campgrounds to be built in more types of zoned areas throughout the county, including the upcounty Agricultural Reserve.
Currently, campgrounds are only allowed in the Rural (R) and Residential Estate 2C (RE-2C) zones under the county zoning ordinance.
“We tried to find a way to balance the growing concept of having overnight stays in the [Agricultural] Reserve and enjoying our rural areas, while ensuring we’re doing that critical work to preserve our rural land for farming,” councilmember Dawn Luedtke (D-Dist. 7) said Tuesday.
The bill is sponsored by Luedtke and fellow councilmembers Marilyn Balcombe (D-Dist. 2), Sidney Katz (D-Dist. 3) and Natali Fani-González (D-Dist. 6).
If passed, the proposed zoning text amendment would allow campgrounds for tents and recreational vehicles in the Agricultural (AR) and specific Residential Rural (RC) zones. The Agricultural Reserve is a 93,000 acre zoned area in the upcounty area that only allows one house per 25 acres. This would include allowing overnight stays, with a goal of boosting agritourism in the county, according to county officials.
Under the county code, a campground is defined as a “parcel, lot, or tract of land used for two or more tent or recreational vehicle campsites.” This definition does not include manufactured homes.
According to Luedtke, the proposed zoning text amendment is designed to prevent a “sprawl” of development in the Agricultural Reserve.
The proposal “takes that commitment seriously, and it contains a number of critical standards for campground use, including requiring that the property be primarily used for farming, allowing only properties of 25 acres or larger to take part in this program, and limiting the size and impact of campgrounds to protect water levels and ensure this land can be used for farming in the future,” Luedtke said.
The legislation is a new version of a previous bill sponsored by Fani-González and introduced in November 2023 that would have allowed tourists to stay overnight on farms as part of agritourism activities. The zoning measure would have updated the county’s zoning ordinance to allow incidental overnight stays on farms with agritourism businesses with certain limits.
Under the previously proposed legislation, accessory agricultural education and tourism activities would have had to be conducted as part of the farm’s regular operation. Overnight stays would have had to occur in structures separate from any residence on the property and cooking facilities would have been prohibited in sleeping quarters structures. Only two people over the age of 18 could have stayed in one structure, and only for a maximum of four days per week. Each farm or facility would have been allowed to have a maximum of 10 structures for overnight stays.
However, that bill drew controversy, with local farm associations voicing concern that the zoning amendment would lead to increased development in the Agricultural Reserve and other rural areas.
Fani-González said Tuesday she is “thrilled” about the new legislation and is glad the council was able to work with community members on a compromise.
“I’ve been working on this issue since 2019 when I was on the Planning Board,” she said. “Working together in partnership is one of the reasons why I’m so proud to be part of this County Council because we have different ideas and we have different backgrounds, but at the end of the day, it’s about us being willing to come together and move forward.”
Luedtke said the new legislation was a product of “robust and at times intense conversations with multiple leaders and stakeholders in and around our Agricultural Reserve.” She thanked Fani-González for opening up the conversation about overnight stays by introducing the previous bill.
A public hearing on the legislation is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on July 16.
