Board of County Commissioners v. Walcroft

Per Curiam. The County Commissioners of Prince George’s County, acting as the District Council for the Maryland-Washington Regional District of that County, rezoned a tract of land with a frontage of some four hundred feet on the south side of Old Annapolis Road at 65th Street from residential to local commercial for a depth of two hundred fifty feet of its much greater depth. On appeal the Circuit Court ordered that the depth zoned commercial be increased by two hundred feet to four hundred fifty feet, and the County Commissioners appealed to this Court. The entire frontage along the north side of Old Annapolis Road in the area is zoned commercial to a considerable depth and almost all the frontage on the south side, except for the tract in question, is likewise zoned commercial, to a depth of two hundred fifty feet.

The technical staff of the Planning Board of the Park and Planning Commission, in its report, noted that beginning in 1952 there had been created “a rib ⁶¹² bon type commercial pattern,” along Old Annapolis Road for several miles in this neighborhood and that adjacent to the property under consideration (and with it constituting an entire block along Old Annapolis Road) were lots with a commercial depth of two hundred fifty feet, occupied respectively by a clothing store and a shoe store. The report indicated disapproval in the abstract .of strip zoning, and deprecated its establishment since 1952 along this part of the Old Annapolis Road, but felt that a denial of commercial use altogether would be arbitrary and recommended the rezoning to local commercial of the subject property to the same depth as other lots along the south side of the road. The land to the south of the strip of commercial land is zoned residential and the two hundred fifty foot depth of commercial is uniform on the south except for two lots, several blocks from the property in question, which earlier were given a commercial depth of four hundred fifty and five hundred feet,