A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit against the City of Rockville, Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton and two council members in which a self-storage company alleged the leaders conspired with residents to create a zoning change that would block a storage facility in the city.
Judge Roger Titus granted the city’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit and denied Howard County-based ezStorage’s claim for $75,000 in damages in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.
The case stemmed from a February 2015 zoning change approved by Newton and council members Beryl Feinberg and Virginia Onley that bans self-storage warehouses from being built within 250 feet of a public school property line.
The Siena Corp., the parent company of ezStorage, planned to build a 900-storage unit facility about 210 feet from Maryvale Elementary School, but the plan aroused concerns from parents of students at the school and other neighborhood activists.
The company claimed Newton and Feinberg coached those activists through the council process for establishing the zoning change and conducted a smear campaign while trying to “downplay or entirely cover up the true, targeted nature of the zoning text amendment,” which it says was aimed at its proposed storage facility.
On Thursday, Titus agreed with attorneys representing the city who argued Siena has no right to sue elected officials over a zoning text amendment, according to news website Rockville View. The website reported that Titus, a former attorney for the city, said the officials have “absolute immunity” from such lawsuits and it would set a “dangerous precedent” to further litigate the matter in federal court.
A Montgomery County Circuit Court judge dismissed the case last year. Siena is appealing that dismissal.
In its original federal lawsuit, Siena claimed company representatives met with Newton on or about Aug. 26, 2014, to discuss the project and Newton brought up concerns that the storage facility could harbor terrorist activities.
“At that time, the Mayor identified herself as a ‘community activist,’ and referenced a novel she had read in which, as part of the plot, terrorists stored bomb-making equipment in self-storage facilities,” the complaint said. “Although the Mayor acknowledged that the novel was a work of fiction, she repeatedly referenced the plot of the fictional work as a potential ‘danger’ to the City.”
The city’s Planning Commission, finding the self-storage facility wouldn’t add significant traffic to the area or pose danger to the nearby school, approved Siena’s site plan application in September 2014.
Siena claimed emails it found during the lawsuit’s discovery process proved Feinberg, Newton and the group of activists were in regular contact as the process continued into February 2015. Newton, Feinberg and Onley, the three council members who approved the zoning change in a 3-2 vote, were personally named in the lawsuit, in addition to the city and the council.
According to Rockville View, Titus agreed in dismissing the case that the type of zoning change protested by Siena “happens all the time.”
