Trails Action Alert. Montgomery County, MD

On September 3 the Montgomery County Planning Board will determine the future of a 3+ mile equestrian trail in Boyds. Your help is needed NOW to secure future use of the trail. Please write to the Planning Board and/or consider attending the hearing and testifying in support of the EPIC easement to demonstrate that safe and sustainable public trails are important to trail riders in and around Montgomery County.

BACKGROUND & TALKING POINTS

1. In 2010 EPIC was invited by M-NCPPC/Park Planning staff to serve as grantee of a trail easement that would advance the Countywide Trails Master Plan and help link existing public and private trail systems. EPIC accepted the invitation and agreed to manage and maintain the trail. The Planning Board subsequently approved a proposed subdivision (Subdivision Plat No. 220120040–220120060, 220120510, Greentree Farm, formerly Barnesville Oak) that included the requirement that the developer include on its plat recordation a recreational trail easement naming EPIC as the grantee.trail easement.

The illustration at left depicts the required easement. The trails are both wooded and along the edge of crop fields and will be mostly untouched by the approved residential lots. It is a beautiful 90-minute ride from Whites Store Road near Bucklodge Road to Two Sisters Farm at the western edge close to Route 109.

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