3502 ARTICLE 16.

1927, ch. 703, sec. 1. 1929, ch. 414, sec. 1.

618. The County Commissioners of Montgomery County are hereby
authorized, empowered and directed by uniform rules and regulations to
regulate the construction, tearing down and improvement of all types of
buildings within that portion of the Maryland-Washington Metropolitan
District, established by the General Assembly of Maryland of 1927, lying
within Montgomery County as they may deem necessary, to regulate and
establish the size of bricks and thickness of walls that are to be used in
the houses to be built in said district or any portion therefor; to provide
for the entry into and examination of all buildings, lots, yards', enclosures
and cars, boats and vehicles of every description in said districts to ascer-
tain their condition for health, cleanliness and safety; to provide for the
taking down and removal of buildings, walls, structures or superstructures
in said district that are or may become dangerous, or to require owners to
move them to put them in a safe and sound condition at their own expense;
to regulate the buildings and maintenance of party walls, partitions, fences,
parapet and fire walls, smoke flues, fireplaces, hot-air flues, boilers, kettles,
smokestacks and stovepipes in said district, and the storage of gasoline
and other combustibles or explosives therein; to provide for and regulate
the safe construction, inspection and repair of all private and public build- -
ings within said district; to regulate, restrain or prohibit the erection of
wooden or frame buildings within the present limits of said district or
any thickly populated portion of the same and to remove the same at the
owner's expense, when erected or suffered to remain contrary to law or such
regulations as they may adopt; to regulate the height, construction and
inspection of all new buildings hereafter erected in said district; to regu-
late the limits within which it shall be lawful to erect steps, porticoes, bay
windows, or other structural ornaments to houses fronting on any of the
highways, streets, avenues, lanes or alleys of said district, to regulate the
materials used and the manner of installing any and all systems of electric
wiring, piping, conduit laying in any building, and generally to adopt
and enforce for the whole of said district or for thickly populated por-
tions thereof, all necessary regulations or rules for the aforegoing pur-
poses, and to prescribe fines and penalties for violations thereof; pro-
vided, however, that no such rules and regulations so adopted by said
County Commissioners as aforesaid shall be deemed valid or effective
until the same shall have been formally adopted by the said County Com-
missioners at a regular meeting, and recorded in a book kept in their
office for the .purpose, and until said rules and regulations shall have been
published at least three times in two of the county papers in Montgomery
County; and it shall be the duty of the County Commissioners to cause
said rules and regulations adopted by them as aforesaid to be so recorded
in a book or books kept by them for that purpose in their office, and to
be published at least three times in two papers published in Montgomery
County as aforesaid, and when so recorded and published all persons shall
be deemed and taken to have notice thereof, and no actual notice need be
proven. And it shall further be the duty of the said County Commis-