Tree-Cutting Proposal Near C& O Canal Spurs Debate

Since Mardirossian first proposed the plan last year, he has reduced the number of trees he wants to cut from 55 to 15, said Gus Bauman, one of Mardirossian's attorneys and a former planning board chairman. Bauman said the businessman realized that his children were not allergic to some trees, and he said the case is "much ado about very little. All Mr. Mardirossian wants to do is take down a few small nut-bearing trees to which his children are deathly allergic and erect a fence to protect his kids from wandering into the area where the other nut trees are."

Federal law, which requires accommodations for people with disabilities, has been cited by parents suing school systems to remove peanuts.

But a staff report from the planning department, written by forest conservation program manager Mark Pfefferle, paints a different picture. It said Mardirossian's consultants, Huron Consulting, submitted documents that changed each time they were turned in.

The report said the matter of the nut allergies did not arise until the third submission, which also showed three driveways into the property, rather than one. Pfefferle's report said that the planning board's staff has examined at least five versions of the plans and is looking at a sixth. He is asking the planning board to delay a decision until the staff can review the new document.

The staff rejected the first five plans for various reasons, including concerns that they may not accurately reflect the number, size and location of trees on the site. The report also said that Mardirossian had proposed using a federal park service standard to protect the trees that is less strict than Montgomery County's.

Bauman said the planning staff asked Mardirossian's consultants to alter the way they were measuring the trees, which accounts for some of the changes in the documents.

"There are numerous authoritative ways that one measures the diameter of a tree," he said. "His consultants used accepted methods."

Spurred by the case, County Council members Marc Elrich (D-At Large) and Roger Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda) have proposed a bill that would toughen the county's ability to regulate what is built along the canal.

"The park service acknowledged that they dropped the ball," Berliner said. "We are now in a situation of trying to make sure that county law is protecting the park, a national resource."

Mardirossian, who emigrated as a child from Armenia, is developing the 182-acre Crown Farm property in Gaithersburg. He is a vocal presence in county political circles and has donated more than $80,000 to local politicians over the years. He holds patents on an eclectic range of items, including a missile-defense system and a cellphone finder.

He has accused the council of attempting to unfairly block his planned home.

"This should be called the 'Aris Mardirossian law,' " he told council members at a recent hearing on the bill.

But Mardirossian also said he is working with Berliner to find a way to move forward with his plans.

Berliner said Mardirossian is considering "an old-looking fence that would be perfectly consistent with walking down the canal in the 1800s." He also said that he had urged Mardirossian to drop his $2 million defamation lawsuit against civic activist Wayne Goldstein.

Mardirossian's suit is based on a letter Goldstein wrote to him asking about a rumor that the developer planned to cut trees to create a view of the Potomac River from his property.

Mardirossian alleges that the letter was "widely circulated" in the county.

Goldstein's attorney has called the suit frivolous.

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.