The future for Dr. Ben Carson’s proposed solar farm in Baltimore County doesn’t look bright.

The pioneering neurosurgeon and his wife, Lacena, have been trying for two years to turn 33 of the 47 acres around their $2.4 million home in Upperco into a solar farm. For that to work, though, they need an easement from a neighbor, Peter Galletti. The Baltimore County Agriculture Advisory Board would have to approve that easement.

The call on the easement — and on the solar farm’s future — was set to happen Wednesday evening. But the Galletti family withdrew the application, according to county spokeswoman Erica Palmisano.

“There was no information provided about whether or not it will be revisited,” she said.

Carson, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2016 and later served as President Donald Trump‘s housing secretary during his first term, faced opposition from his neighbors in Upperco who say they already look at many solar farms. The solar farm on the former Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon’s property would be among the largest in an area where many residents have paid the state to put their land in preservation to keep it rural.

In 2005, Baltimore County paid more than $312,000 for the easement on the property the Gallettis now own. Because of the way the land is configured, Carson would need to access his solar farm through the county’s easement on the Byerly Road parcel. The easement is a contract to preserve the land in perpetuity. Under the terms, the land is to be used only for agricultural purposes.

“If they were to get access, it likely would have gone through, and it would have created a precedent where many surrounding properties could have done the same thing,” said Sam Blum, a neighbor. “It would have been a terrible mess for the area.”

Blum and his neighbors hope this means the end has come for the solar saga. The Baltimore County Agriculture Advisory Board has represented the last step in permission for the Carson solar farm ever since a new state law removed any local zoning shackles from solar farms — despite protests from many Eastern Shore farmers.

The board meets only when it has business to discuss, according to Megan Benjamin, the county’s planner and land preservation administrator. The Carson farm was on the agenda for May 13 but was taken off due to a family emergency, Benjamin said. The board postponed its June 11 meeting because the landowner was out of the country, and it therefore had no business to discuss.

Neither Carson nor Galletti could be reached for comment. Representatives of Nexamp, the Boston-based solar company that Carson entered into a contract with, did not return calls.

The Hanover Road and Boring community associations were ready to show up Wednesday night to argue against allowing the farm to breach the easement.

So was Renee Hamidi, executive director of the Valleys Planning Council, which advocates for land preservation in Northern Baltimore County.

Hamidi said Baltimore County generally follows the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation guidelines, which will grant easements for utilities only if the party that would be granted the easement has condemnation authority, such as a local government.

As Trump’s housing secretary, Carson was not exactly an evangelist for renewables. He lamented a new rule that California passed requiring solar panels on new homes.

“No doubt this will drive up prices for new homebuyers even further,” he told the executive board of the National Association of Home Builders in May 2018. “Why are we not surprised that, when this was announced, solar panel stock shares jumped while homebuilders’ shares fell?”

Though out of government, Carson remains close to the president and lives near him in Florida. Trump recently named Carson to serve on his Religious Liberty Commission.

Pam Ecker, president of the Boring Community Association, said she wants more information from the advisory board and the applicant on whether the application will be refiled before breaking out the champagne. But, she said, she believes the board’s approval could have been too big a hurdle and, if so, the community may have seen the last of the solar farm that has consumed the energy of many for the past two years.