Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1959-12-10

wv ment house crisis.
flood of requested apartment house projects is being
uneashed There have already been some holes punched
in the coming dixie and they're trying to punch lot more
It's time somebody put finger in the widening hole that
is being preached.
There are lot of experts on this SUBJECTIVE PLAN
ners the consutans the hghprced lawyers who get big
zonng fees Big money attracts big talent For every ex
pert who says thing you turn right around and
find another who will say just the opposite.
But there one cold hard unacceptable fact that none
of the experts honestly deny: Montgomery Countys
solid taxpayng community minded sngle-family home
owners don't like apartments If they liked them, they'd
be living them them But they have sheled out
their lfe's savings to get away from them!
Maybe of the singe-famiy homes aren't too pre-
entous But they're homes. And every family living in
them is proud of them and likes the kind of community
they're in.
That's why it's SO insulting for the authorities to force
big apartment project down their throats The lawyer
dominated County Council has been splitting legal hairs
various issues since it took office But should be warned
that at least far apartments concerned the tax
payers not in mood to put up with much more
hair-sptng and real or imagined legal gobbledygook
There's angry ground swell of public opinion beginning
to form on this whole apartment house issue.
Does it make sense-despite what the experts may
say-to stick up dreary row upon row of apartments in
the back yards of the established single family community
of Rosemary Hills? Should the solid sngefamily charac
ter of Vers Mill 3D. where there is not apartment house
along the entire distance of the thoroughfare from Whea
ton to Rockville be shattered by IL acres Of apartments?
Four members of the County Council apparently think
they would not have voted the way they did two weeks
ago.
What is there in sticking up 400 apartment units
on Georgia ave. in Genmont where there are no apart
ments anywhere in sight? Can the County Council blame
the people who have bought homes there and raising
their children for being incensed?
What does the homeowner about such pious JUS
tfcations ITO aid in the accomplishment of coordin
ated comprehensive, adjusted and systematic develop
men of the entire when he suddenly from the
window of his living the mustory apartment prof.
ect he's been trying to flee from?
There places in Montgomery County-penty of
themwhere apartment houses necessary and desir
able recent report by the countys planning director de-
scrbed how pending apartment applications if all of them
approved would provide living quarters for "a the
people canexpect to into suburban Maryland for
the next five years He pointed out Montgomery County
now has 327 acres of areadyzoned unused apartment
house land enough for S270 apartment units How
the County Council consider charging full speed ahead
with new apartment zonings in the light of this informal
ton?
Private ownership rights are fine but we are rapidly
nearing the pont-f indeed have not already passed
where certain financial interests and their mnions are
thessly crushing the rights of individual homeowners.
The Council had better put stop to it and members
would be well advised to embark on course of being
little more responsive to the desires and urgent needs
the contys great mass of sngefamiy homeoWners The
sole justification for approval of many apartment house
projects particularly those in sngefamiy areas is to give
certain financial interests opportunity to make more
money There is no demonstrated public need for them
nobody to want them in those areas but the deve-
oper This makes mockery of democratic government
bers who have demonstrated tendency to vote for such
projects had better wake up and realize how thin is the ice
on which they skating The water below is awful cold
and, in this case, awful deep!