This March, a Maryland appeals court said the county council would have to hold a public hearing for any further townhouse development on contested land near Driskell Park.
Werrlein Properties owns land on the hillside above Driskell Park, as well as a large former parking lot east of the playground.
In June 2025, the city council voted to buy the undeveloped 4.5-acre lower lot from Werrlein for $6.5 million. The city has not yet bought the property, and is facing a budget shortfall.
In March of 2024, the county council rejected a detailed site plan for townhome construction there. Werrlein’s appeal of that decision was stayed pending this litigation, which concerns an earlier stage of planning.
Werrlein has already developed the 3.5-acre portion on the hillside, the former Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission headquarters. All of the single-family houses have been sold, and about half the townhouses, currently priced from $760,00, have been sold or are listed as under contract as part of Werrlein’s Suffrage Point development.
The court cases that started soon after Werrlein purchased both land parcels from Douglas Development Co. in 2017 continue.
In June 2019, the county council, which sits as the district council when deciding zoning and land-use matters, approved Werrlein’s request to allow townhouses — rather than just single-family homes — on the lower lot, adjacent to Driskell Park. The council also agreed to maximum densities of 6.7 single-family homes per acre and 9.0 townhouses per acre.
In February 2022, a state court ruled that the district council must recalculate the allowable number of houses and townhouses per “net acre” on the site, subtracting land in the site’s 100-year flood plain from the total acreage, along with alleys and streets.
County zoning rules state that density calculations can’t be for the entire, or “gross,” acreage of a site, but must allow for the actual buildable land, the net acreage. The state appeals court wrote, “This error may be significant for a property on which the number of net acres may be substantially less than the total acreage of the property.”
At a July 2022 meeting held in response to the February 2022 court ruling, the district council decided, with input from the county planning department, that the specified 9.0 townhouses per gross acre translates to 12.3 townhouses per net acre.
The city of Hyattsville and a group of residents asked the county circuit court to rule against this decision because the district council didn’t hold a prior public hearing nor demonstrate its rationale for 12.3 townhouses per net acre.
In September 2024, the circuit court decided in favor of the city, ordering the district council to hold a public hearing and listen to interested parties’ arguments before arriving at a decision on the number of townhouses the lower lot can accommodate.
Werrlein appealed, which resulted in the March ruling, in which the state appeals court agreed with the circuit court’s decision.
The appeals court wrote that the district council, in coming to its decision to allow 12.3 townhouses per net acre on the lower lot, unfairly considered new information from the planning department, but did not allow the city or residents to argue their case or present information. The court also wrote, “The District Council should not focus, as it apparently did here, on whether the new density regulation will accommodate a developer’s request to construct a specific number of dwelling units [41 townhouses] on the property.”