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Development and Zoning, Historic Preservation

Historic District Designation

Certain properties in the City of Rockville are designated as local historic districts to preserve their historic character and relevance to Rockville’s heritage. The Historic Resources Management Plan outlines how Rockville’s historic buildings and areas are managed.

Rockville has two types of local historic districts:

Some of Rockville’s local historic districts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in whole or in part, though some listed properties are not located within a local historic district. National Register sites do not require Historic District Commission (HDC) review for work on the property; however, they may be eligible for additional historic preservation tax credits administered by the Maryland Historical Trust.

Explore Rockville’s historic districts through the Inventory of Designated Historic Districts, 2011 Historic Buildings Catalog, and the interactive Historic Districts and National Register Sites Map below.

Eligibility for Historic District Designation

Historic designation is a recognition of the importance of a property’s structure or landscape to the Rockville community and can provide financial benefits to the owner. Designation also places a higher standard on the maintenance, alteration, or removal of structures than other properties in the city not deemed of historical significance.

Historic districts can be described as single resources or a contiguous group of buildings, structures, appurtenances, environmental settings, sites, objects, and spaces, which reflect the following qualifications: 

  • Events: Structures and sites associated with events, or a pattern of events or historic trends, that are considered important or significant in Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland, or national history and social development.
  • Persons: Structures and sites associated with the lives of persons making significant contributions in Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland, or national history, and which illustrate the person’s important achievements. 
  • Cultural: Structures and sites significant to the cultural traditions of a community, such as being associated with the development of the culture of a particular local ethnic group. 
  • Architecture: Properties significant for their physical design or construction, including architecture, engineering, landscape architecture, and artwork. 

In recommending the establishment of a historic district, the HDC considers the historic significance of either multisite or single-site historic districts.

Any building in the city that meets adopted criteria of architectural, cultural, historical, landscape, or archaeological significance is potentially eligible for local historic designation. Intangible resources such as folklore and oral histories are important, but for this purpose are to be considered supportive resources. To be recommended for historic designation, a property must meet at least one of the following nine criteria adopted for the HDC to consider when performing an evaluation of significance on a property:

Historic Significance:

  • Represents the development, heritage, or cultural character of the city.
  • Is the site of an important event in Rockville’s history.
  • Is identified with a person or group of persons who influenced the city’s history.
  • Exemplifies the cultural, economic, industrial, social, political, archaeological, or historical heritage of the city.

Architectural, Design, and Landscape Significance:

  • Embodies distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction.
  • Represents the work of a master architect, craftsman, or builder.
  • Possesses a style or elements distinctive to the region or city.
  • Represents a significant architectural, design, or landscape entity in the city.
  • Represents an established visual feature of the neighborhood or city because of its physical characteristics or landscape components.

Properties that are determined to be of historical or cultural significance must also have sufficient integrity to convey the sense and time of its significance. Elements of integrity for historical significance are: 

  • Location: Areas which consist of a contiguous grouping of buildings, sites, objects, and spaces, a majority of which continue to exist within the area where they were first created in a mutual relationship of traditional acceptability. 
  • Design: Areas that have a sense of cohesiveness expressed through a similarity or variety of detail relatedness, architectural or otherwise, based upon the abstracts of aesthetic quality. These include scale, height, proportion, materials, colors, textures, rhythm, silhouette, and siting.
  • Setting: Areas that are readily definable by man-made or natural boundaries, or which have a major focal point or points within the given area.
  • Materials: Areas that have a sense of cohesiveness expressed through a similarity or variety of material relatedness based upon traditional material use which contributes to a sense of locality. 
  • Workmanship: Areas that have a sense of homogeneity reflective of quality aesthetic effort of those periods that represent the majority percentage of the units within the historic district. 
  • Feeling: Areas that impact human consciousness with a sense of time and place. 
  • Association: Areas that relate nationally, state-wise, or locally, to the lives of individuals, to events created by these individuals, or to those visual aesthetic qualities that reflect the feeling of time and place.

Historic District Designation Process

Anyone may nominate a property for historic district review. A structure that is the subject of a demolition application is automatically reviewed by Historic Preservation Division staff and the HDC for significance to the city under Section 25.14.01.d.1(c) of the Zoning Ordinance.

The steps below can also be viewed as a flowchart.

1

The process begins upon receipt of a Historic District Designation Nomination Form nominating a property for historic designation. The nomination could come from the Mayor and Council, the Planning Commission, the HDC, or the community.

2

After staff analyzes the property for potential eligibility and makes a recommendation, the HDC holds a public hearing to review the history and architectural significance of the site and determine if it meets the adopted City of Rockville Historic District Designation Criteria. The HDC is not permitted to consider other factors in its review for designation. If the HDC finds that a nominated site meets the criteria to be eligible for designation, it may authorize filing for a historic district rezoning through the Sectional Map Amendment process. The HDC will make a recommendation to the Planning Commission for a map amendment to add the property into a historic district.

3

The Planning Commission reviews the Sectional Map Amendment application and makes a recommendation to the Mayor and Council. The Planning Commission is responsible for reviewing the application to determine if rezoning the nominated property into a historic district zone would be consistent with the Rockville 2040 Comprehensive Plan, and if the designation meets the purpose of the historic district zone.

4

The Mayor and Council hold a public hearing on the Sectional Map Amendment. During this public hearing, it may consider all the comments and recommendations brought up by the HDC and Planning Commission, as well as testimony from the public and overall effect on the City of Rockville.

5

If the proposed historic district designation is found to be appropriate, the Mayor and Council directs staff to prepare an ordinance to grant the map amendment and introduce it. It then goes to a vote for adoption. By adopting the Sectional Map Amendment, the Mayor and Council identifies the nominated district as possessing certain architectural, cultural, or historical significance to the city and community, and that it should be preserved. If the Mayor and Council declines to authorize the map amendment application, the historic designation process is ended without the zoning change.

6

After adoption, the city’s Zoning Map is amended to show that the district is zoned HD for Historic District in addition to its underlying zone. The HDC is appointed to regulate exterior changes to historic districts using the city’s adopted design guidelines.

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Contact

Community Planning and Development Services Department
Historic Preservation Division
240-314-8236
history@rockvillemd.gov

Hours
Monday – Friday
9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Address
Rockville City Hall
111 Maryland Ave.
Rockville, MD 20850