A Woodbine resident who has campaigned against a neighboring farm's mulching operation has been cited by the county for a zoning code violation on his own property.
Robert Long, who owns a farm and stables on Woodbine Road, received a citation for parking unregistered vehicles and operating an auto paint shop and a veterinary business on his property outside of county code, among other violations, according to a formal notice from Howard County's Department of Planning and Zoning dated Dec. 2.
Long says the citations are unreasonable and plans to appeal.
The notice is the most recent development in a heated debate over whether processes such as wood mulching and composting should be allowed on preserved farmland in western Howard County.
Long, who lives across the street from Oak Ridge Farm, a tree nursery owned by local farmer Erich Bonner, has for more than a year claimed that mulching at the nursery has caused health problems for him and for horses boarded on his property.
In July, he sued Oak Ridge Farm in small claims court for $5,000.
Over the course of the case, Bonner and his lawyer have presented evidence of what they say is an auto body shop on Long's property that is not permitted under county code.
Based on invoices subpoenaed by Bonner and presented in court, Long received between three and eight deliveries per month from Nyquist Inc., a Baltimore-based automotive paint supply company, between December 2012 and October 2014.
Bonner, who said he has seen delivery trucks and cars coming and going from the property, says a paint shop, if it exists on the property, could be the cause of some of Long's alleged health problems.
"It astounds me he's been an advocate against industrial processes on farms when he has one on his own," he said.
Long isn't the only one to have been cited by the county. In November, Bonner agreed to a $1,000 fine after county officials issued him a civil citation for having mulching product and machinery on his property.
Bonner maintains, however, that he hasn't done anything to violate county code and that there has been no mulching on his property in months. In November, several of his adjacent neighbors wrote notarized letters in support of his nursery business, noting that they had not been disturbed by dust, odors, noise or any other concerns associated with a mulching operation.
"At all times I was doing anything surrounding mulching, I was doing it within code," Bonner said.
Long, too, insists he has done nothing wrong.
He said he believes the charge of a veterinary business on his property is based on a former horse boarder's acupuncture therapy practice for race horses. The unregistered vehicles, he says, are for use on the farm. And another violation – that he has more than one single-family detached home on his property – he counters by noting that the three houses on his property are historic buildings that are more than a century and a half old. He argues they should be grandfathered in since they pre-date zoning regulations in the county.
As for the paint shop, Long calls the charge "a matter of interpretation.
"I do have a backyard garage, and they wrote me up for having a full-blown body shop in my garage," he said. "I work by myself, I have no employees, I'm a half a mile from any residence other than the ones on my property, and the only tools that I have are hand tools like a sander and a spray gun, so I don't consider it to be a body shop."
According to the county's notice, Long's property will be inspected again in January. If he has not rectified the zoning violations by that time, according to the notice, he could be fined between $250 and $500 a day for each day that the violation persists.
The county's Department of Planning and Zoning does not comment on zoning violations, as a matter of policy.
Another court date is scheduled for Feb. 2 in Long's case against Oak Ridge.
Meanwhile, a county task force assigned to study mulching policy for the County Council has taken longer than initially expected to make its report. The group's next meeting is scheduled for Jan. 14. ,