Costco loses latest round in fight to open big gas station at Wheaton mall
|
Version 0 of 1. A Montgomery County Circuit Court judge has dealt Costco the latest setback in a five-year fight to open a 16-pump gas station at its store in Wheaton. Judge Gary E. Bair ruled Friday that the county’s Board of Appeals acted properly in April when it rejected Costco’s bid to open the gas station at the Westfield Wheaton Mall. The plan is opposed by the Kensington Heights Civic Association, which contends that fumes from idling vehicles would harm residents of nearby homes, swimmers at an outdoor community pool and a school that serves medically fragile children. The appeals board agreed with the prior finding of a county hearings examiner that the company failed to prove that the station posed no risk to the health, safety and welfare of neighbors. Costco argued that the county was preempted by federal and state air quality regulations from barring the project. But Bair ruled that the company never explicitly made that case before the Board of Appeals. Even if it had, he said, the law allowed the county to adopt its own rules governing air quality standards. As the case lumbered through the regulatory and legal system, the Montgomery County Council voted twice to increase the distance between large new gas stations and nearby communities. The latest measure, passed earlier this month, increased the buffer from 300 to 500 feet. Costco officials have not said whether they plan to appeal the matter to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals in Annapolis. The company could also reapply for permission to open the station under the new 500-foot threshold. The fight over the gas station plan has been one of Montgomery’s longest land-use battles, generating more than 36 hearings and 9,500 pages of testimony transcript. |