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Three Laytonsville landowners will go before the Montgomery County Planning Board next month for a public hearing on alleged violations of the county Forest Conservation Law.

The case is the first involving alleged forest conservation law violations to be prosecuted in a process introduced about six months ago, said Mark Pfefferle, acting chief of environmental planning and forest conservation program manager for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

At the hearing, set for Jan. 11, the four members of the Planning Board will act as judge, he said. County planners will testify under oath and be cross-examined by the plaintiff's attorney and alleged violators' attorneys. The alleged violators will have the opportunity to testify and cross-examine witnesses, Pfefferle said.

The alleged violations vary from landowner to landowner and range from removal of trees to bulldozing and building in a forest conservation easement.

"They're trying to enforce something that has never been recorded," said Earnest Sahady, who bought his 5-acre farm at The Paddocks at Fairhill subdivision development more than nine years ago. Sahady and two neighbors who live on adjoining lots on Ripplemead Drive have hired attorneys, he said. They believe the county has no case.

"The violations are different on the three lots," Pfefferle said. "So what may be the level of reproachment for one may not be the same level as the other two."

Sahady and his neighbors — Marcus McClure and Daniel and Sadie Smith — all bought their properties between 1999 and 2001, said Pfefferle, whose staff alleges the landowners are not complying with terms of conservation easements the county placed on their properties after approving them in 1999.

McClure could not be reached for comment.

The Fairhill subdivision was created in the 1980s and developers knew of the easements, which are designed to preserve existing forest and areas where fields are naturally regenerating into forest, Pfefferle said.

Notices sent to the landowners in October show that the Montgomery County Planning Department charged Sahady with cutting grass and installing a fence and equestrian riding ring where he shouldn't have — and McClure, who also owns a 5-acre parcel, with installing asphalt, trailer storage, a fence and parking, as well as cutting grass and letting horses graze in violation of the law.

Planners charged the Smiths, who own a 2-acre lot, with installing a fixed foundation 20-by-20-foot shed in a forest conservation easement and asked them to move it.

Montgomery County Permitting Services granted Sahady a permit to install a 100-by-180-foot fence around his riding ring and granted the Smiths a permit to build their shed, Sahady said. He has discovered "that these so-called conservation easements were never recorded on our plats," as required by county rules and regulations.

The easements are not recorded either against his lot in county land records, said Sahady.

Dan Smith said his shed encroaches on the easement by 20 feet — and that moving it would cost thousands of dollars.

"I think the main story here is that none of the plats in this neighborhood were filed, and to make the plats legal in the application process, [county planners] should have recorded them at [the Montgomery County Recorder of Deeds office] and they should have also filed the plat," he said.

Fairhill developers, The Bozzuto Group, marketed to equestrians and Sahady said he would not have bought, had he thought the land had a large easement.

Norman Knopf, a Rockville attorney who represents McClure, did not return calls for comment.

The plats for the subdivision were recorded before the conservation law took effect, said Pfefferle. County planners believe the easements have been properly recorded.

Should the Planning Board find that a violation has occurred, the board can issue the landowners remedial actions and monetary penalties up to $9 per square foot, he said.