Wakefield V. Kraft

We are called on to review the action of the Circuit Court for Howard County, invalidating the rezoning by the County Commissioners from Residential to Commercial A, of a tract of land at the intersection of Columbia Road and Montgomery Road. Marcus A. Wakefield, Jr. and his wife, the appellants, in June, 1946 acquired an unimproved rectangular eight-acre tract of land at this location. Before the appellants bought the land, there existed three commercial uses in the immediate neighborhood -- a combination filling station, tavern and lunchroom on the northwest corner of the intersection, a dance hall, skating rink and restaurant about seven hundred feet south on the Old Columbia Pike, and on Montgomery Road to the north, a filling station.