Florida Greenery sells lilies in the spring and pumpkins in the fall from a field next to the Earleigh Heights Volunteer Fire Station on Ritchie Highway, but, if the Woodbridge Forest Community Association has its way, the business might not be selling anything there at all.
Community association leaders have asked county zoning officials to stop the commercial use on land zoned for residential development, but the fire department is fighting to continue to be allowed to sell plants.
Closing down the operation, which sells plants from early spring until December, would mean a loss of about $15,000 in revenue for the department at a time when it must meet increased safety requirements, said Chief Michael Robinson.
"We have new requirements placed on us every day, and we have pay for it ourselves," he said. The building, for example, must be renovated to provide access for the disabled and to provide separate living quarters for male and female firefighters, he said.
According to reports filed with the Maryland secretary of state, the Earleigh Heights Volunteer Fire Department made more than $301,000 last year and spent more than $247,000 of that on new rescue equipment.
The financial needs don't outweigh the danger of continued commercial expansion, countered Lawrence E. Masterson, president of the Woodbridge Forest Community Association.
"There is absolutely no basis for changing the nonconforming use," he said.
"We strongly oppose any more commercial development."
Woodbridge Forest is less than a mile south of the fire station, off Ritchie Highway, Residents there, like many others in the corridor that stretches from Pasadena to Severna Park, fear that the highway will become cluttered with glaring signs and vendors.
The fire chief argues that the department is not "going to be building another Ritchie Highway eyesore."
"Plants, in light of everything else on Ritchie Highway, I don't really see as a problem," he said.
The greenery company has been selling plants next to the firehouse since 1985, and the operation was not an issue until last year, when Mr. Masterson complained to county land use offices that the residential property was being used for commercial purposes.
County officials told the fire department to shut down the operation, but the department applied to register the plant sales as a legal nonconforming use, one that was in operation before the residential zoning went into effect.
That request was denied in August. Robert J. Dvorak, the acting director of planning and code enforcement, and Debbie Vaughan, a planning technician, ruled then that the plant sales began long after the residential zoning went into effect in 1973.
Moreover, they said, the sales were "independent of the fire company and not a use associated with the fire company, as are their carnivals, conventions and training classes," which have been held on the land since the 1940s.
The fire company has appealed the decision and is trying to gain support from the Greater Severna Park Council, one of the most powerful civic groups in the county.
"We're going to meet with the Greater Severna Park council and try to persuade them to support us," said Darrell Henry, attorney for the fire company.
"We're hoping they will work something out.
"My clients don't want to fight with the GSPC."
Al Johnston, chairman of the Greater Severna Park Council's zoning committee, already has said that the organization would vote to uphold zoning laws.