If you're like most readers of this magazine, you feel the pressure. It's all those people moving out into your pristine countryside to build their dream home—or park their trailer. We know because you've told us, many times over.

Now imagine what it must be like to live in Kent County, Maryland. Washington D.C. is just a two-hour drive away. So is Baltimore. Philadelphia, too. New York is a mere four hours away.

By all reasoning, Kent County should be covered with homes, strip malls and "farmettes." But it's not. Not anywhere close.

Instead, Kent County is a rare holdout in the sprawl and development in this country that clearly is out of control. Kent County maintains a culture of farming, wildlife, and small towns and villages that are relatively untouched.

For a county to be in our Best Places list, we hold them to the usual standards—good schools, health care, safety and other desirable qualities. But what makes Kent County stand out is its residents' resolve to maintain a solid rural heritage. At the foundation of that effort is farmland preservation, something that started decades ago with foresight, cooperation and some far-sighted planning.

Located on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, the county is home to some of the most historic farms in the U.S. It's not unusual for a family here to trace its lineage back to the Revolutionary War. Stately farmhouses still grace the landscape, but only because Union soldiers never had reason to come here, and so the old homes were spared.

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The county is small in land mass and in population. It has just 20,000 people. But the county is growing, and the way it's doing so is well worth examining.

To explain Kent County's expanses of farmland, it's easy to give credit to the county's relative isolation. The bridge across the Chesapeake Bay is about 35 miles south of the county line. There's always the possibility that could change, however. For many years, state lawmakers have proposed building a new bridge just to the north, linking the area directly with Baltimore. Residents here vehemently oppose the idea.

But the real story here is smart growth and farmland preservation. As for growth, the county long ago planned where development should and should not occur. It all made sense: encourage growth where the infrastructure is—the schools, the roads, the water and other utilities—and it lowers costs for taxpayers.

As for farmland preservation, it's mainly the result of farmers selling the development rights of their land to the state.

"It's important to start it early, before developers start waving their money around," advises Pat Langenfelder, first vice president of Maryland's Farm Bureau. She and her husband, Conrad, moved to Kent County 20 years ago after urban sprawl between Baltimore and Washington made farming there too difficult. They now have 538 acres of their farm on the waiting list for conservation easements. "We truly do believe in preserving the land for future generations."

Here's how the plan works in Kent County. If a farmer decides he wants to keep his land and continue farming it, he can sell his right—and the right of future owners—to develop that property. In other words, the land will always be farmed.

He tells the county how much he'd like to receive for those development rights, and his name goes on a list of like-minded farmers. The county the prioritizes it's purchases by several criteria: How close is the land in danger of being developed? How good are the soils? How close is it to other farms already in the program?

The county can tap into several funds for this, the main one being the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation. The state program is funded, in a sense, by developers themselves. Whenever development occurs in the state, Maryland takes 5% of the real estate transfer taxes and puts it into the program. In other words, "Developers, we'll let you build here, but you'll have to pay for saving land somewhere else." Last year, the state poured out $80 million for preserving land. Kent County received $12 million of that.

The county relies on other sources for preservation. County commissioners usually set aside $100,000 a year for purchases. Other sources are easement donations from landowners, funds through the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy and others—but MALPF is by far the main source.

So far, the county has about 28,500 acres of land in permanent easements, about 16 percent of the total land mass. Last year alone, landowners put 2,800 acres into easements.

The program is so popular there is a waiting list. Last year, 24 landowners applied to have their development rights purchased, but funds limited acceptance to just 14. Last year the state paid a range of $2,500 to $8,000 an acre, but the average price has been about $4,100.

For added measure, the county also has zoning that makes random development difficult. The county is zoned to a variety of uses—housing development, industrial, agricultural. If the land is zoned agricultural, only 2 new lots can front a public road. You can also only put one housing unit per every 30 acres. And only 10 percent of any one property can be in development

If this sounds harsh, consider that farmers have a large say in the planning. For several decades now, the county commission has been appointing farmers to an agricultural advisory committee to help the commissioners understand the farm perspective of planning and zoning.

The results might not make everyone perfectly happy, but residents here have long acknowledged there's never a perfect solution to a complex problem like property rights and land use issues. At a time when so many people are complaining about people slicing up farmland, agriculture here is as strong as ever.

"We are gaining farmers, not losing them," notes Langenfelder. "They're coming here because they see that farming here has a future."

Click Here to read a previous article The Progressive Farmer featured concerning the preservation and restoration efforts of farmers surrounding the Chesapeake Bay Region.

FEATURED PROPERTIES IN THIS COUNTY FROM THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER REAL ESTATE DATABASE>>

More info on the web:
Extension Office, Kent County
kent.umd.edu

Kent County Public Schools
www.kent.k12.md.us

Government Site
www.kentcounty.com/gov

Community Service and Organizations
www.kentcounty.com/com

Chamber of Commerce
www.kentchamber.org