Luxmanor Citizens Ass'n v. Burkart

Barnes, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal involves an order of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County (Shearin, J.) dated December 23, 1971, dismissing the appeal of Luxmanor Citizens Association, Inc. and certain individuals, appellants here and below, from a decision of the County Board of Appeals ⁶³³ for Montgomery County (Board) by a vote of three to two, granting the application of Dr. Manfred Kozuch and Dr. Armand Dumas, two of the appellees, for a special exception to construct and operate a medical clinic at 11404 Old Georgetown Road (Lots 2, 3 and 4, Block B, Luxmanor Subdivision), North Bethesda, located in an R-R (Rural Residential) zone. Judge Shearin was of the opinion that the issues before the Board were fairly debatable so that the Board’s decision was not arbitrary, unreasonable or capricious and would not be reversed by the lower court. We have concluded that he was correct in his opinion and we will affirm the order of December 23, 1971, dismissing the appellants’ appeal from the Board’s decision.

The subject property, 11404 Old Georgetown Road, consists of three lots in the Luxmanor Subdivision to be resubdivided into one lot. This one lot is a corner lot and, using approximate figures, has frontage cf 380 feet on the west side of Old Georgetown Road and has a frontage of 125 feet on the north side of Roseland Drive. The lot is an irregular one on its north and west boundaries. The northern line is 195 feet in length and adjoins Lot No. 1.

The westerly boundary abuts Lot No. 13 for approximately 90 feet, then proceeds in a southeasterly direction along Lot No. 5 for 170 feet and then in a southerly direction 130 feet to intersect the northern side of Roseland Drive. Old Georgetown Road (Maryland Route 187) is a six-lane, dual highway adjoining the subject property on the east. The north and south three lanes are separated by a median strip. No parking is permitted on this road.

There is regular public transportation on this highway. Roseland Drive is approximately 25 feet wide. It is a county blacktop road, with no curb, gutter or sidewalk. To the north of the subject property and west of Old Georgetown Road is the Washington Science Center, a church and a single-family subdivision in the R-R zone.

To the south, on the east side of Old Georgetown Road is the Woodward High School. To the west and south of ⁶³⁴ the subject property are single-family dwellings also in an R-R zone. Doctors Kozuch and Dumas, contract purchasers of the subject property, filed their petition for the special exception for the medical clinic use on October 9, 1970. At the hearing on December 17, 1970, Dr. Kozuch testified that the proposed medical clinic would contain eleven suites for eleven doctors.

He mentioned the possibility of having fifteen doctors because some of the doctors “may have associates,” but it was “not likely that they will be there at the same time.” The tenants might have as many as three employees in addition to the doctor. Others might have only one employee. In his own dental practice, he had two employees; one, a full-time receptionist and nurse; the other, a part-time chair side assistant. He rarely sees more than one patient an hour.

He had sought to find office space — as had Dr. Dumas — in Bethesda and surrounding area, without success, no such space being available. Dr. Dumas testified that he is an orthodontist who sees one patient an hour until 3:00 P.M., after which he sees three patients (mostly children after school hours) an hour. He also employs a receptionist and a chair side assistant. John H. Sullivan, Jr., AIA, a registered architect in Maryland, who practices his profession from his business office in Bethesda, testified in support of the petition for the special exception.

He had prepared the site plan and designed the building for the proposed medical clinic. He stated that the total area of the subject property was 60,135 square feet. The proposed building is a “two-story building of residential character” compatible with the area and contains a total of 12,030 square feet gross area, with eleven practitioner suites. The upper floor comprises six suites containing 6,060 square feet; the lower floor, five suites containing 4,050 square feet, with an average of 900 square feet per suite.

The total parking space required for the gross area is 12,030 square feet. The Montgomery County Zoning Ordinance requires ⁶³⁵ parking spaces for 60 automobiles, and parking space for that number of cars is provided in the plan. There are provisions in the zoning ordinance for adjustment in the number of required spaces if the spaces are landscaped (a reduction of 10%) and for a reduction of 10% for compact automobiles from the normally required size of 9 feet by 20 feet to 9 feet by 14 feet. All 60 spaces are of normal size, except 6 spaces in back of the building, which are 9 feet by 15 feet.

Mr. Sullivan recommended that two spaces be landscaped which, if the Board approved, would reduce the 60 parking spaces to 58 spaces. The staff members would park primarily in the rear of the clinic. The building would primarily face toward Old Georgetown Road with a 25-foot roadway running from that road into the property near the south side of the building. There is also an 85-foot road giving ingress and egress from the subject property to Old Georgetown Road located approximately 50 feet north of the north side of Roseland Drive.

The patients would park primarily to the south of the building and would drive from the subject property by way of the roadway nearest Roseland Drive. A 5-foot high stockade fence is around the yard of the subject property facing Roseland Drive and the abutting lot owner to the west to a point approximately one-half of the north property line. This fence is required by the zoning ordinance primarily to screen the parking areas. The site is heavily wooded and it is contemplated that the majority of the present growth would remain.

In addition, there would be minor landscape lighting two or three feet high of a contemporary nature, primarily for low ground cover illumination in the evening. This lighting is “very handsome . . . very low key lighting” and “will never be objectionable to adjacent property owners” in that it “has no intensity, is not high, not in a distinct fashion.” There will be only one low, well-designed sign at the front of Old Georgetown Road probably reading “Manor Medical Building” for identification of the property by ⁶³⁶ motorists. The names of the physicians and dentists will not appear on the sign. The zoning ordinance requires a minimum of 40,000 square feet for a medical clinic, the site contains 60,135 square feet; the required minimum frontage is 200 feet, the site has approximately 380 feet on Old Georgetown Road and approximately 125 feet on Roseland Drive; the required setback for the building is at least 40 feet and the proposed building meets this requirement; the maximum permitted height of the building is 50 feet, the proposed building is only 27 feet 4 inches above the curb line of Old Georgetown Road.

No parking spaces are within the front, side and rear yard setbacks required in the R-R zone. The building — designed in a residential fashion — will be heated and cooled the year round. Any noise factor from a condensing unit — located adjacent to the building pointed north and screened by a masonry wall and planting — would be minimal. Being only two stories high, there will be no elevator.

Provision has been made for trash storage in the lower level of the building next to the mechanical equipment area and trash would only be placed outside on trash collection days. Mr. Sullivan was of the opinion that the adjoining residents were adequately protected from glare and noise; that the planting and fence adequately screened automobile traffic from the adjoining residences; that there was adequate provision for parking; and, that the proposed medical clinic building fitted that “degree of compatibility which this Board seeks to achieve in any type special exception.” The final witness for the petitioners was Page Hopkins, a consulting engineer, with offices in Silver Spring. His “specialty” is land use, traffic engineering and zoning. Mr. Hopkins has a Bachelor of Science degree and is registered as a professional engineer in Maryland, Florida, Virginia and Rhode Island.

His qualifications as an expert were not challenged. He testified that he had familiarized himself with the present proposal. He in ⁶³⁷ dicated that it would be necessary to resubdivide the three lots into one lot having exactly the same exterior dimension. He was of the opinion that the proposal would not adversely affect the health and safety of residents and workers in the area and would not overburden the existing public services such as water, sanitary sewer, public roads, storm drainage and other public improvements.

He testified at some length and in detail in regard to the storm water situation. He indicated that in his opinion if the subject property had a runoff factor of .35 at the time of concentration, it would generate 2.782 cubic feet of water in five minutes. Using a runoff factor of .25 and time of concentration of five minutes, there was a total of one-half of a cubic foot of water for the green area so that there would be a runoff of 3.28 cubic feet per second, or .1 of a cubic foot more than is going across the property at the present time. To avoid any substantial concentration of water in one particular location, it is proposed to use bumper blocks pinned into the asphalt so that the water would naturally flow from the parking areas and be directed over a larger area.

Mr. Hopkins was of the opinion that the proposal would not tend to change the character of the general neighborhood or adversely affect the use or the development of adjacent properties. He pointed out that a medical clinic is a permitted use in the R-R zone and that the building is residential in character and completely screened from adjoining property owners. The parking is also generally screened from the adjoining property, being in some regards beyond that required by the zoning ordinance. In regard to traffic, Mr. Hopkins had conducted a traffic study and concluded that there would be no traffic problem.

His traffic survey indicated that on December 11, 1970, between 4:30 and 5:30 P.M. — the peak hour— he counted on Old Georgetown Road 1,490 vehicles northbound per hour and 1,736 vehicles southbound. Fourteen vehicles left Roseland Drive and entered Old Georgetown Road and three vehicles left Old Georgetown Road and ⁶³⁸ entered Roseland Drive. The designed capacity of Old Georgetown Road, according to the State Roads Commission, was for 3,300 vehicles pfer hour. He reached the following conclusion: “Combining all of these figures with the design data of the State Roads Commission for this three-lane or six-lane divided highway, Georgetown Road, which has a design capacity of 3300 vehicles per hour, the southbound lane is now operating at 52.6 percent of its capacity and using the generation figures that I have set forth, during the peak hour there would be 60 trips generated southbound onto Georgetown Road so that is the only way you can exit the property. “That would increase the vehicular hourly count by 60, and would increase the percentage of design capacity to 54.4 percent.

Which represents an increase in design capacity of 1.8 percent. Or it represents 3.5 percent of the traffic presently using the road during the peak hour in the southbound direction. “Northbound we counted 1490 vehicles. Based on a direction of traffic which would be generated by this facility we said that 20 percent of the people would come from the area to the west, that is the Tilden Lane entrance. Forty percent would come southbound on Old Georgetown Road and 40 percent northbound.

We would then generate 48 additional trips northbound on Georgetown Road, increasing its operating percentage from 45.1 at the present time to 46.6 percent. Or representing an increase of the actual number of vehicles using the road today of 3.2 percent. “As I stated in my traffic count, there were 14 vehicles that went from Georgetown Road into Roseland Lane. That road has a capacity ⁶³⁹ of approximately 900 vehicles per hour; 14 vehicles represents 1.6 percent of its design capacity.” Summarizing, Mr. Hopkins stated: “In summation, when we increase the traffic on Old Georgetown Road in the neighborhood of 2 percent and the traffic on Roseland Lane by only 2.9 percent of its designed capacity, we certainly have not hurt the neighborhood from the standpoint of traffic generation.” Mr. Hopkins, in order to verify his opinion in regard to the adequacy of parking, compared the experiences of other medical clinics in Montgomery County. At Doctors Park — for which he was a consulting engineer — he estimated that the vacancy ratio of parking spaces during any given hour of the day is between 35 and 50%.

University Medical Clinic on University Lane, two blocks south of Dennis Avenue — which he visits once a week— has a parking vacancy ratio of approximately 35%. He stated, “It is very seldom when I can’t park right in front of the door.” The larger Forest Glen Clinic at the northeast corner of Georgia Avenue and Forest Glen Road had an estimated parking vacancy ratio of 25%. In summary, he stated: “What I am leading up to is including the staff, people, overlapping patients, the ordinance of Montgomery County regulating a medical clinic is more than adequate in its provision for parking. That has been my experience, both personal observation and as a professional traffic engineer.” The neighboring property owners who protested against the granting of the special exception were represented by counsel at the hearing.

Only one of the protestants, William McQuilkin, 6004 Roseland Lane — a lay witness — testified. Although he indicated his apprehension in regard to increased traffic and flow of storm ⁶⁴⁰ water, there was nothing in his testimony that tended to refute the testimony of the petitioners’ expert witnesses. Section 111-35 of the zoning ordinance provides that the applicant for a special exception shall have the burden of proof to establish the required criteria for the granting of a special exception and that the criteria are: “(1) The proposed use does not affect adversely the General Plan for the physical development of the District, as embodied in this Ordinance and in any Master Plan or portion thereof adopted by the Commission; and “ (2) The proposed use at the location selected will not: “(a) adversely affect the health and safety of residents or workers in the area; “(b) overburden existing public services, including water, sanitary sewer,