Background
Forest Glen Medical Center, LLP (“FGMC”) has owned a 3.78-acre parcel on Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland — directly across from the Forest Glen Metrorail Station — since 2003. In 2021, developer JLB Realty LLC entered into a purchase contract with FGMC for the property and, in August 2022, obtained a broad written authorization from FGMC’s managing partner empowering JLB Realty to file and pursue all land use applications on FGMC’s behalf. JLB Realty subsequently applied to the Montgomery County Planning Board of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission for approval of a preliminary plan, site plan, and forest conservation plan to redevelop the site with a mixed-use building of up to 390 multi-family units, 5,000 square feet of retail space, and civic green space, while removing 0.43 acres of existing forest and eight specimen trees.
The Planning Board approved all three plans in 2024 after extensive staff review, public hearings, and agency input. Neighboring residents and civic groups — Forest Grove Citizens Association, Nandini Arunkumar, Pamela Stanziani, and Friends of Sligo Creek — petitioned the Circuit Court for Montgomery County for judicial review. They argued, among other things, that the resolutions were void because JLB Realty’s purchase contract with FGMC had expired before the Board acted, that the plans failed to substantially conform to the 2020 Forest Glen/Montgomery Hills Sector Plan, and that the tree variance was improperly granted. The circuit court affirmed the Planning Board, and appellants timely appealed.
The Appellate Court of Maryland reviewed three questions: (1) whether the expiration of the purchase contract stripped JLB Realty of standing as a valid “applicant” and rendered the resolutions void; (2) whether substantial evidence supported the Board’s finding of substantial conformance with the Sector Plan; and (3) whether substantial evidence supported the tree variance grant under Maryland’s Forest Conservation Law.
The Court’s Holding
The court affirmed on all three questions. On the threshold agency question, the court held de novo that the resolutions were not void as a matter of law. Applying MCC § 50-2.2(A)’s definition of “applicant” — which expressly contemplates that entities involved in a project “may change” through successive stages — and principles of actual authority under Maryland agency law, the court found that the expiration of the purchase contract did not terminate JLB Realty’s authority to act. FGMC’s August 2022 authorization letter conferred actual authority on JLB Realty to pursue all applications on FGMC’s behalf as property owner, and FGMC’s subsequent conduct ratified that authority. The purchase contract’s expiration was simply not the determinative instrument.
On substantial conformance with the Sector Plan, the court held that the Planning Board’s finding was supported by substantial evidence. Critically, the court clarified that “substantial conformance” with a sector plan’s recommendations does not mean “strict conformance.” Citing Pringle v. Montgomery Cnty. Plan. Bd., 212 Md. App. 478 (2013), the court reaffirmed that a sector plan’s specific “recommendations” may remain “aspirational rather than mandatory” even when the plan is binding on the Board as to what findings the Board “must make.” Reading “recommendations” to mean “requirements,” and “substantial conformance” to mean mere “conformance,” would violate established canons of statutory interpretation.
On the tree variance, the court upheld the Planning Board’s grant as supported by substantial evidence. The Planning Board found that denying the variance would impose an unwarranted hardship by denying reasonable and significant use of the property, that the need for the variance arose from existing site conditions and development requirements rather than the applicant’s own actions, and that granting it would not violate water quality standards — the affected trees being located outside any stream buffer, wetland, or special protection area. The court found these findings adequate under MCC § 22A-21.
Key Takeaways
- An expired purchase contract does not automatically void a land use applicant’s authority to proceed: where a property owner has issued a broad written agency authorization, that authorization — not the contract — controls the agent’s standing before the Planning Board.
- Montgomery County sector plan “recommendations” are aspirational, not mandatory; the Planning Board need only find “substantial conformance,” which is a lesser standard than strict or full conformance with each individual recommendation.
- A tree variance under Maryland’s Forest Conservation Law may be granted when site-specific constraints — including infrastructure requirements, sewer relocations, and Sector Plan open-space mandates — make removal unavoidable, even for protected specimen trees, provided adequate mitigation is proposed.
- The MCC § 50-2.2(A) definition of “applicant” is broad enough to encompass parties whose formal contractual interest in property has lapsed, so long as they remain authorized agents of the current owner at the time of the Board’s action.
Why It Matters
This decision provides important guidance for land use practitioners in Montgomery County on two recurring pressure points in development litigation. First, it confirms that agency relationships in zoning applications are governed by general principal-agent principles, not by the continued vitality of underlying purchase contracts — a practical ruling for multi-year development projects where contract timelines routinely slip. Second, the court’s clarification that sector plan recommendations are “aspirational rather than mandatory” and that substantial conformance is not strict conformance gives developers, planning staff, and the Board a workable standard for projects that meet the spirit but not every letter of a sector plan.
The decision also reinforces Maryland’s general framework for judicial review of Montgomery County Planning Board decisions: purely legal questions — such as whether an agency lacked authority to act — are reviewed de novo, while factual determinations underlying approvals are reviewed for substantial evidence. That bifurcated standard insulates most Board findings from reversal while keeping the courts available to police threshold jurisdictional and statutory-authority errors.