## Facts

- National Capital Realty Corp. sought rezoning of a roughly 1.4-acre rectangular tract on Spring Street in Silver Spring, Maryland, near the northern edge of the business district.
- Spring Street was treated by planning and zoning authorities as the northern boundary of the Silver Spring business district, with single-family residential zoning to the north.
- The tract was zoned R-60 (single-family) after a 1954 comprehensive rezoning, then reclassified by the County Council in 1962–1963 to C-O (commercial office building).
- Surrounding zoning included R-60 to the north, significant C-O to the west/southwest, and a pattern of C-2 (general commercial) to the south, including high-rise residential built under a previously available C-2 allowance.
- The rezoning application requested a change from C-O to C-2.
- Planning staff recommended denial, citing the potentially excessive intensity allowed in C-2 (including height and ground coverage).
- The Planning Board approved the request after the applicant offered covenants, conditions, and restrictions intended to limit development if rezoning were granted.
- The Montgomery County Council, sitting as the District Council, denied the rezoning after receiving legal advice that conditional zoning was not permitted; it evaluated the request as one for unrestricted C-2.
- The circuit court reversed and ordered approval based on the covenants; the County appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the District Council could be required to grant rezoning based on privately offered covenants that effectively create a conditional form of a standard zoning classification.
2. Whether the District Council’s denial of rezoning, treating the request as one for unrestricted C-2 and rejecting reliance on the covenants, lacked substantial evidence or was arbitrary or capricious under the fairly debatable standard.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Maryland reversed the circuit court.
- The court upheld the District Council’s denial of the rezoning application.
- The Council was permitted to treat the application as a request for standard, unrestricted C-2 and was not required to accept or enforce private covenants as the basis for reclassification.
- Because the appropriateness of unrestricted C-2 at the site was fairly debatable and supported by substantial evidence, judicial intervention was improper.

## Legal Principles

- Rezoning decisions by a local legislative body are legislative in character; courts do not substitute their judgment where the decision is supported by substantial evidence.
- Under the fairly debatable standard, a zoning decision must be upheld if reasonable persons could differ on the outcome based on the record.
- A local legislative body is not obligated, absent clear authorization in the zoning scheme, to use private covenants to create an ad hoc, privately tailored conditional version of a generally applicable zoning category.
- Where a requested classification permits uses and intensities potentially incompatible with adjacent residential areas, the legislative body may evaluate the application “as zoned” (i.e., by the maximum permitted C-2 uses and density) and deny rezoning to preserve established district boundaries.

## Conclusion

The court sustained Montgomery County’s denial of rezoning from C-O to C-2, holding that the Council could refuse to base legislative rezoning on privately proffered development covenants and that, because the suitability of unrestricted C-2 was fairly debatable, the circuit court erred in ordering approval.


Montgomery County v. National Capital Realty Corp., 267 Md. 364, 297 A.2d 675 (1972)