ABSTRACT
Included in the specified midnight rezonings moved to be reconsidered by the new Council was application E-928, a proposal by MNCPPC for sectional map amendment of the Olney region, filed on July 28, 1966, to implement a General Plan for the Maryland-Washington Regional District which the MNCPPC had adopted in early 1964, and a Master Plan approved by the District Council on August 31, 1966, both envisioning Olney as a satellite low density community ultimately to have 19,000 people at the core and 10,000 on the fringe. The Plans contemplated a green belt of open spaces and parks to shield the Olney area from the ever-lengthening and overcrowding suburban sprawl coming out of Washington, and changed the zoning designation of appellants' land, some 183 acres in the southeast quadrant along the east side of Georgia Avenue, from R-R (half acre lots to R-A (two acre lots), as it did some 12,000 other acres. A public hearing was held on October 17, 1966 on E-928. Officials of MNCPPC and of the County Citizens Planning Association offered extensive testimony in support of the application and it also was supported by the technical staff of the Planning Commission and the Commission. The appellants presented several experts to refute the concepts of the Master Plan urging in essence that the prior policy of allowing all the small houses that the ever-increasing population of the County would buy or rent be allowed in the Olney area, which would lead to a population of some 200,000 despite the conceded inadequacy of sewerage and roads. The old Council rejected the Master Plan it had approved a few months earlier by denying application E-928.
