O. F. Smith Bros. Development Corp. v. Montgomery County Council

Hammond, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appeal is from the affirmance by the Circuit Court for Montgomery County of the refusal of the County Council to rezone some ten acres of land located generally along Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda from R-60 (one family detached residential) to R-T (Town Houses). The Technical Staff and Planning Board recommended denial of the application to rezone because (1) the existing high grade character of the neighborhood (single-family residences in the thirty thousand to forty-five thousand dollar range on large lots) had not been changed by the granting of a number of special exceptions such as private clubs, a nursing home in a former residence, a medical clinic, and a group of doctors’ offices in town houses, and (2) the subdivision streets were narrow for the increased traffic which would be generated if the application were granted, and (3) the desirable character of the area would best be maintained by the development of the ten acres for more single family residences—which the applicants admitted was feasible— ³ “rather than introducing a use considerably different from the surrounding area.” The staff also found that “certainly no transition is needed in this area” and that “rezoning of this land to the R-T zone will permit over three times as many families as the R-60 zone would yield.” The Council concurred in the recommendations and “concluded that the standards prescribed in the Zoning Ordinance for the R-T zone 1 have not been met in this case.” Appellants make two main contentions. First, it is said that the Council erroneously applied the general mistake or change rule applicable to individual rezonings to the R-T zone, having acted before our decision in Knudsen v. Montgomery County Council, 241 Md. 436 , where we held that the R-T zone, like the R-H zone reviewed in Beall v. Montgomery County Council, 240 Md. 77, was a floating rather than a conventional Euclidean zone and therefore was in the nature of and analogous to, a special exception.

Second, it is contended that when the Council refused, in effect, to add another special exception (the R-T zone) to the several which had been previously granted, its action was