Poolesville's Board of Zoning Appeals must revisit its decision to permit two doctors to run an optometry office out of their Selby Avenue home, a county Circuit Court judge ruled.

The volunteer board failed to consider a neighborhood covenant in the Tama subdivision requiring homes to be used exclusively for residential uses, Judge Joseph A. Dugan Jr. said at a hearing in Rockville.

The neighbors who appealed the board's decision in November, and share a driveway with the doctors, did not expect to live next to a home office that sees patients and receives deliveries, Dugan said. The prohibition on non-residential uses in the covenants should have let the board know that residents agree that businesses are not compatible with the neighborhood, he said, even if only the homeowners who share a driveway with the business are actually impacted.

The board approved a special exception request from Drs. Robin Mevissen and Thomas McInnes to operate their optometry business, Poolesville Vision and Contact Lens Service, out of their home in 2008. The couple's next-door neighbors, Don and Linda Barnes, asked for reconsideration in April, but the board again voted unanimously to grant the special exception three months later. The town's Planning Commission provided a favorable recommendation both times.

Town attorney Alan Wright said at the hearing that the board's decision was based on Poolesville's zoning regulations and did not nullify the covenants, and he questioned why the Barnes did not seek to have the covenant enforced by the courts instead of appealing the special exception. Covenants, which a homeowner agrees to abide by when they buy their house, can restrict anything from house color to who may live in a neighborhood.

"The town of Poolesville and its board of appeals cannot be in the position of deciding which covenants are reasonable," said Wright, who instructed the board not to consider the covenants in its decision.

The town has not decided whether it will appeal, Wright said in an interview.