A petitioner representing Days End Farm Horse Rescue asked a Howard County hearing officer to admit exhibits and consider variances that would allow two small front-yard additions to a former 1958 volunteer firehouse so the building can be repurposed for education, training and a small souvenir/tack shop.

The hearing officer accepted the petitioner’s exhibit list (petitioner’s exhibits 1 through 5) into the record and reviewed procedural items; the record was later closed with no opposition entered on the transcript. The parties and witnesses described two proposed additions that require relief from the county’s 75-foot front-yard setback: a roughly 150-square-foot public vestibule at the building’s street-facing side and a separate bump-out on the building’s south side intended for storage and shop support.

Why it matters: the additions are intended to provide ADA-compliant access and to support Days End Farm Horse Rescue’s educational and rehabilitation mission without demolishing the existing structure. The site is directly adjacent to Days End’s primary facilities, and speakers said that the grade change between the properties, onsite septic infrastructure and an on-site stream mapped to a 500-year floodplain limit where additions can be located. Those physical constraints, witnesses said, make the proposed front-yard locations the practical choice for the needed access and storage.

Witness testimony and site details
Douglas Tilley, vice president of engineering and surveying at O’Connell & Lawrence Inc., testified that the site plan package comprises two pages (existing conditions/limited demolition and a plan sheet with proposed revisions) and that the building was constructed in 1958. He described the site as having multiple buildings, a substantial parking area, a septic pump tank and septic tank on higher ground behind the building, and a stream with a culvert running through the property. Tilley said the 500-year floodplain is mapped by Howard County and is shown running through the property.

Tilley summarized the project changes as removal of an existing carport, placement of a fire-suppression water tank where the carport sits (needed because “there is no public water in this location, so the suppression tank was needed to be able to power the sprinkler system. That would be required to bring this building up to code”), construction of a public vestibule on the road-facing side, a storage/shop bump-out on the south side, minor ADA-parking upgrades, a concrete accessible path and a switchback path from the Days End campus down the slope to the building’s entrances.

On practical difficulty and alternatives
Tilley told the hearing officer that the primary practical difficulty is that “the building exists and is over the setback already,” and that the grade change between Days End’s property and the firehouse lot makes providing ADA access from the neighboring property feasible only in the proposed area. He said interior layout constraints — the rear of the building contains a commercial kitchen and large hall areas that are not suited to daily public access or the souvenir/shop function — make relocating the vestibule or storage bump-outs elsewhere impractical without a substantial interior retrofit.

Staff review and application changes
Tilley and counsel said the applicant revised the site plan in response to Department of Planning and Zoning (DPZ) comments. DPZ staff had requested that a previously submitted side-yard variance be deleted because the subject property and the neighboring Days End parcel would be used together; the petitioner removed that side-yard relief from the pending request. Petitioners’ exhibit 3, a DPZ letter dated 12/06/2024, was cited as the document requesting that change.

Parking, curb cut and site circulation
Tilley testified that the site will provide at least the parking required by zoning and that the revised plan reduces the width of the existing curb cut to the road from roughly 77.5 feet at present to about 32 feet in the proposed condition, reflecting that the building will no longer function as an active firehouse with large apparatus movements. He said the accessible parking is located where slopes permit a compliant path and that a new concrete path would connect those spaces around the building to the public vestibule and other entrances.

Support and public record
Tilley said, “My understanding is that the County Executive has expressed support for this project” and pointed to a prior special farm-use permit granted in 2019 by Howard County DPZ for Days End’s agritourism/educational activities; that 2019 permit was discussed as evidence of prior local approvals supporting expansion of Days End’s programming on adjacent parcels. The transcript records that certification of posting and publication was received; no members of the public formally opposed the petition during the hearing.

Action on the record
The hearing officer admitted the petitioner’s exhibits 1–5 into the record and the parties closed the record; the transcript does not include a final decision on the requested variances. Because no final ruling appears on the transcript provided, the case’s final disposition is not stated here.

What remains unsettled
The transcript shows procedural and factual record-building: admitted exhibits, revised site plans and testimony about site constraints, but it does not include a written or on-the-record decision granting or denying the requested setback relief. Any final action or conditions would need to be confirmed in the board’s written order or a later hearing transcript.

Ending: next steps
The hearing record was closed on the transcript provided. The transcript does not show a final ruling; interested parties will need to consult the board’s written order or subsequent public filings to determine whether the variances were granted and under what conditions.