Wheaton resident Geoff Patton said two boarding houses were operating on his quiet street, each with about 10 residents who were likely part of a “not-so-underground railway of hard-to-document people.”
The houses, which were designed for a single family, have been filled for two years with a rotating cast of workers whose cars or work trucks are parked in the yard or are taking up a large chunk of street parking, Patton said.
A maid service is run out of one of the homes, and its employees live at the house when not working, he added.
The influx of people and the heavier traffic they have brought are affecting property values, Patton said.
“All of us are being severely impacted by this surreptitious change in the zoning,” Patton said.
Patton is among Montgomery County residents who have complained that the county’s zoning laws have not kept up with the times, and the character of residential neighborhoods is being eroded as more businesses are run out of houses and more parking space is being taken up by commercial vehicles.
In response, County Executive Ike Leggett convened a work group that has proposed new rules designed to keep the residential neighborhoods looking residential.
The proposed rules, which are being considered by the County Council, include a requirement that a home-based business can’t have more than one employee visit the home in a 24-hour period.
Leggett’s proposed rule changes would allow only two vehicles at a time to be parked on the lot of a home-based business.
And it would prohibit parking on grass and limit how much front yard could be paved over to make a driveway.
Civic groups have applauded that particular measure as a way to protect a neighborhood’s charm while saving the environment.
“Having a fully paved front yard, which occurs all too often today, makes the property look more like a commercial one,” Thomas McNamara, president of the Greater Colesville Citizens Association, said in a letter to the County Council. “It also has a negative impact on the amount of storm water runoff.”
Though Leggett’s proposed changes wouldn’t affect the county law that prohibits more than five unrelated people from living in one house, the county is trying to improve communication among departments to make enforcing existing laws and codes more effective and timely, Leggett spokesman Patrick Lacefield said.
Patton said he thought Leggett’s proposed changes in zoning law would be part of a “comprehensive solution” that would help address the problems he sees on his street.
But a building trades advocacy group said it feared the proposals may be too far reaching and have “unintended consequences” that hurt small-business owners.
And others say the county is trying to place burdensome restrictions on property owners.
“If a homeowner wants to pave their entire property, then that should be their choice to make,” Potomac resident William Casson said in a letter to the County Council.
