Rockville Planning Commission Recommendation Could Curb West End Congregation’s Expansion Plans

A recommendation by the Rockville Planning Commission could limit a West End congregation’s plans to grow its flock. 

Commissioners on Wednesday recommended changing the city’s land use rules so that a 1920s-era home at 628 Great Falls Road would be considered a historic zone.

The recommendation now goes to the City Council. The council voted 4-1 in June to authorize the filing of the zoning change. The council would still have to give final approval to the historic designation.

The issue

The Rockville Maryland Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which owns 628 Great Falls Road and the adjacent property where its current hall stands, wants to build a 160-seat place of worship that would abut the back of the house, representatives from the congregation told commissioners.

Jody Kline, an attorney representing the congregation, said there were no plans to tear down the home.

"It is our intention and goal to preserve that structure exactly the way it looks in that setting," Kline told the commissioners.

A missionary would to continue to live at the residence, Kline said. He said the historic designation wouldn’t necessarily mean halting the congregation’s plans, but it would create what he called “unnecessary” challenges.

He also addressed a concern neighbors raised, that the expansion would amount to the further “institutionalization” of the city’s historic West End.

"Is a religious institution, a church, inconsistent with the residential character of the neighborhood? I guess I'm of the school of thought that says the two aren't intrinsically inconsistent with each other," Kline said.

Historic ties

The property is believed to be linked to an antebellum community of African Americans.

Citing property records and documents from the Maryland Historical Trust, residents at prior city meetings offered written testimony about a woman named Ann Wilson, a free African American, who purchased an acre of land along Great Falls Road in 1845. That acreage grew as her family grew and eventually included the site that is 628 Great Falls Road.

City staff also said the home’s architecture was historically significant, one of a dwindling set of examples of the typical working class home in the early 20th century.

Richard Ward, the West End resident who applied for the designation, was among nine people who testified in favor of making the site a historic zone. He said he applied for the designation because he wanted to preserve the residence.

"I'm a contractor, I'm a builder,” Ward said. “I don't do the big stuff, but I know how tough that is to take a new structure and marrying onto a 100-year-old structure. There are complications. A historical designation puts some constraints on what they can do and what they can't do."

Where the commissioners stand

In the end, the commissioners, in a 4-2 vote, sided with advocates of designating the site part of a historic zone.

"There is a historic designation process that tries to get farther down the line than any individual property owner, in terms of ensuring there's proper stewardship,” Commissioner Jack Leiderman said. “We do know that properties can be bought and sold. It's not to say that the current property owners want to do any harm to the historic vision of the property, but we do have a process in place."

Commission Chairman Jerry Callistein and Commissioner David Hill were the opposing votes.

"This house was falling apart, falling down if the church wouldn't have bought it and resurrected it,” Callistein said before the vote. “The thanks they are getting for that is that their property is being taken away from them."

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>>> Related: Does This House Deserve a Historic Designation?