College Gardens (Rockville, Maryland) | community

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In the 1960s Rockville experimented with a new zoning concept to promote the creation of entire neighborhoods. Planned Residential Units (PRUs) encouraged variation in types of housing, shopping facilities nearby residential neighborhoods, open park areas, and buried utilities. College Gardens (along with Woodley Gardens, Rockshire, and others nearby) was one of the early Planned Residential Units in Rockville.

The first planning activity for College Gardens took place in the early 1960s, with the first approved development plan in 1964. By 1967, the street layout and lot divisions were set and construction of the first houses was under way. The builder responsible for the planning was the Artery Organization, and even though “College Gardens” was the legal name used by the City on surveys and plats, Artery decided to call the property “Plymouth Village” to be consistent with their Early American real estate marketing theme. Since all the marketing brochures and newspaper ads used that term, most new homeowners told their friends they had bought a home in “Plymouth Village”. After a few years, residents settled on referring to their neighborhood as “College Gardens” instead. The last homes in College Gardens were completed around 1972.