Opinion ID: 2011601
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Abutting land to the southeast zoned for multi-family use.

Text: The Council either forgot or chose to ignore the principal reason it gave for changing this 27 acre tract ( Marcus tract) from R-90 to R-30. It said, in its opinion, (in Marcus ) that the reclassification (of the Marcus tract) would be most logical in view of the existing and planned highway pattern and the fact that the R-30 zone, as now constituted in the Ordinance, provides a nice transition between commercial and R-90 zoning. (Emphasis supplied.) The R-90 zoning, of course, refers to the Baker tract (and beyond) to the northeast and, very likely, to the Artery tract (and beyond) to the northwest. The Artery tract, of course, was R-60. In Baker, we said that the rezoning of abutting property does not always warrant the rezoning of adjacent property. And we said also, in Baker, that we have recognized the fact that apartment zoning may constitute a buffer between commercial and residential zones. Id. at 185. Moreover, in respect of this very tract (the Marcus tract), Judge Horney, for the Court, in Baker, said:    Although a buffer zone was not mentioned by this Court as a reason for affirming the action of the council in Marcus v. Montgomery County Council, supra, on which the council erroneously relied in the instant case to justify the rezoning of the subject property, the apartment zoning approved in that case was nevertheless a buffer between commercial and residential zones.  Id. at 186. (Emphasis supplied.) It would seem to follow that if the Council, in Baker, erroneously relied on the rezoning of the Marcus tract to R-30, then that same reliance in the instant case is likewise erroneous.