What’s the Ag Reserve?
The Agricultural “Ag” Reserve is a 93,000-acre portion of northern Montgomery County that was zoned in the early 1980s for farming, land conservation and open space. A group of visionary local leaders sought this set-aside—30% of the county’s land—to protect it from development.
The Ag Reserve is one of only a handful of set-aside “green areas” in the country just outside a major metro area—with the specific purpose of preserving active farming. Since its inception, the Ag Reserve has served as a national model for farmland preservation. It has even been referred to as the nation’s “most successful farmland preservation program.”
By any measure the Ag Reserve has been a remarkable success, thanks largely to strong political and citizen support.
Detailed rules and regulation govern the Ag Reserve. All serve to prevent non-farm commercial development and high-density housing.