MONTGOMERY COUNTY
Planning Board Approves Historic Status for 3 Sites
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Monday, September 28, 2009
Three sites in Montgomery County, including a 1930s subdivision near downtown Bethesda and a cemetery where a Revolutionary War soldier is buried, have received approval for historic designation from the county's Planning Board.
The next stop is the County Council, which will review the proposal for Greenwich Forest near Bethesda, the Bureau of Animal Industry Building in Norwood Park near Chevy Chase and the Higgins Family Cemetery in Rockville.
The designation limits changes that can be made to the sites without county approval. Planning Board approval also provides protection from major changes until the County Council acts. No date has been set for council action.
Some Greenwich Forest residents told the Planning Board on Thursday night that they oppose the designation, saying it could severely restrict their property rights and potentially harm property values.
Kevin O'Prey, one of the opponents, said the measure is aimed at curbing development. "It is a sledgehammer approach," he said.
Supporters said the houses' historic value needs to be protected, a view echoed by Planning Board members.
Seventy-one houses in the community have been deemed historic. A Planning Board staff report by preservation expert Clare Kelly said the community, with an array of housing styles, "characterizes the best that post-Depression suburbs had to offer, yet the community is now becoming a rarity." As with many close-in neighborhoods, some of Greenwich Forest's colonial revival and Tudor revival houses have been torn down to make way for larger houses that don't match the local architecture.
The animal industry building, on land owned by the county's park system, is used as a recreation center. The renaissance revival structure dates to 1909 and was used by the federal Agriculture Department as part of a farm, just off Wisconsin Avenue between Chevy Chase and Bethesda.
The Higgins Family Cemetery, on private land near Twinbrook, is linked to a family whose ancestor, James Higgins, fought in the Revolutionary War, died in 1816 and is buried there.
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