Good evening, Rockville.

Today is Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026.

This is meeting number 9-26 of the City of Rockview Planning Commission.

I am Men Sen, Chair of the Planning Commission.

I'm joined in chamber by Commissioners Jeff Zains, Sullivan Pitman, Eric Footin, and Jamie Espinosa.

Commissioner Cheyenne Hassel Hadin can now join us tonight.

Tonight's meeting is being conducted in person and virtually by WebX.

Tonight's agenda includes one recommendation to mayor and council, one review on level two set plan, one briefing on the City of Rockview Trends Report, and then this will be followed by our regular scheduled commission items.

Before we proceed, does any commissioner have any questions?

Okay.

So let's proceed with today's first agenda item.

Recommendation to mayor and council.

Section map amendment MAP2026-127 to resume property at 24 Martins Lane from R60 to R60HD to place a property in the historic district overlaid zone.

Historic district commission of Rockville is the applicant.

So Mr.

Watsley, is there a presentation from staff?

Yes, Madam Chair, there is.

Just to note that this application is a historic district map amendment, as you stated, and the commission's role is to make a recommendation to the mayor and council, who will be the ultimate uh decision makers on this particular application.

And with that, I am joined by Megan Flick and Katie Gerbis from our historic preservation team to make the staff presentation.

I'll turn it over to you Maker.

Thank you, Jim.

So good evening, Commissioners.

This is our report for a map 2026-127, which is a sectional map amendment at 24 Martins Lane.

So just wanted to start by going over the historic designation process.

And then the HTC recommends a historic designation.

This happened at their June 18th meeting, which I will get into in more detail on the next slide.

And then the next step is that staff applies for a sectional map amendment to apply the historic district overlay zone on the property based on the HTC's findings.

And then we are now at the third step, which is uh planning commission reviews the sectional map amendment application and makes a recommendation to the mayor and council.

Uh and then finally, the mayor and council will hold a public hearing and take action to designate the property or dismiss the request.

So they felt it met the following historic significance criteria, uh, that it represents the development heritage or cultural characteristics of the city, uh, that it's a site of an important event in Rockville's history, uh, that it's identified with a person or a group of persons who influence the city's history, and that it exemplifies the cultural, economic, industrial, social, political, archaeological, or historical heritage of the city.

Uh and the HDC also determined that it met the architectural design and landscape criteria that it embodies distinctive characteristics of a tight period or method of construction.

Uh so getting into the uh property description here, uh, it's located on the south side of Martins Lane.

Um, and it's a narrow but deep lot.

It's actually an internal lot, so it doesn't have direct frontage on Martins Lane, um, but there's a pipe sem out on the east of the property, so the legal lot line does have Martins Lane frontage and vehicle access is to the driver alley on the west side of the home.

And then getting into the building description, uh, starting with the front or eastern facade.

Um, this home is commonly referred to as the Powell Crutchfield House.

It's a two and a half story vernacular home, and it's estimated to have been built sometime between 1892 and 1897, uh, although other accounts claim the home was built in 1909.

Um, and the photo on the left of your screen is an older photo from 1988, um, showing the front of the home, and on the right, you can see the front of the home currently.

I think this photo is taken in April of this year.

Um, so you can see some of the disc repair here, the door to the screen porch is falling off, and there is some overgrown ivy on the front.

And then getting into the rear or western facade, the home is actually later enlarged in the 1920s to include an L-shaped kitchen wing onto the rear of the home.

And again, you can see the older photo on the left in 1988 of the rear, and then on the right is uh the rear currently.

Um and again, you can just see some damage here.

You can see the roof has collapsed in large areas, um, and there are some missing windows as well.

Uh and then finally, we have some more current photos of the north and south sides of the home.

Um so again, these are just showing more of the deteriorating condition of the home.

Um we have some damaged siding and that overgrown ivy, um, and then also uh some more missing windows.

And then getting into the family and neighborhood history.

Um, so the Hey Taitai community is one of the earliest black communities in Rockville.

Um, it was established by Samuel Martin and traces back to formerly enslaved people on the Beale property.

Uh these lands were actually deeded from the Beale family.

So the image on the left uh shows the Hay Tai Martins Lane district.

Um, so other parts of this site are designated, but this specific property has not been designated.

And then the 1916 map on the right shows the distinct geographic areas of the Martins Lane District.

Uh, so that includes Martins Lane, the Beal Parcels, the Beale subdivision, and then also a modern development on McLean Court.

And just wanted to note too that this property is part of the original Ross Powell Crutchfield homestead, and it remained in the same family and its ascendants uh for several generations until 2023.

So getting into plan and commission action here, uh planning commission's role is to one determine consistency with the comp plan uh and then also to determine conformity with the purposes of the historic district overlay zone.

Uh so I will just go through each of these one at a time.

So starting with the consistency with the city's comprehensive plan, uh, as far as the historic preservation element, it does align with the historic designation of properties.

It contributes to maintaining the city's CLG status.