The history of Montgomery County zoning can be told in one house.
The story starts in the 1930s, a few years after Montgomery County adopted its first zoning ordinance. A developer named George Sacks began to build on a large tract of land he owned just south of downtown Bethesda.
Expensive subdivisions like Kenwood and Chevy Chase West had already succeeded nearby. But Sacks’s land was by the railroad tracks, not a place where the wealthy wanted to live in the age of coal-burning steam engines. So he built more modestly, with prices starting at $7,130.
In those days, the