Board of County Commissioners v. Racine

332 A.2d 306, 24 Md. App. 435, 1975 Md. App. LEXIS 584
CourtCourt of Special Appeals of Maryland
DecidedFebruary 13, 1975
Docket303, September Term, 1974
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 332 A.2d 306 (Board of County Commissioners v. Racine) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Special Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Board of County Commissioners v. Racine, 332 A.2d 306, 24 Md. App. 435, 1975 Md. App. LEXIS 584 (Md. Ct. App. 1975).

Opinion

Menchine, J.,

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Elwood Racine, (Racine) was the owner of a mobile home subdivision, known as Mansion Heights, in Cecil County, Maryland. The subdivision consisted of 7 lots of about one half acre each as shown on a duly approved plat, recorded among the plat records of the Circuit Court for Cecil County in March, 1967, in Plat Book W.A.S. No. 2, folio 77. The seven lots were laid out on the north and south sides of Mansion Drive. Mansion Drive entered the development from Route 272. The tract was within the “Highway Commercial Zone C-2.” On July 26, 1973 Racine filed an application for a zoning and sanitary permit with the zoning department for the use of lot 2 in the mobile home subdivision for a mobile home without a permanent foundation. The zoning officer denied it. Racine’s appeal to the Cecil County Board of Appeals (Board) also resulted in a denial of the requested permit. Racine’s appeal to the Circuit Court produced reversal of the Board’s decision. An appeal to this Court by the Board of County Commissioners of Cecil County and by other aggrieved persons followed.

For reasons hereafter stated, we conclude that use of lot 2 of Mansion Heights for a mobile home without a permanent foundation in a mobile home subdivision is an authorized *437 use of land within the C-2 zoning. We find this conclusion not dispositive of the litigation however, because of the contention by appellants that a doctrine akin to res judicata, arising from an earlier, identical decision by the Board in prior litigation, bars Racine’s requested use.

The Interpretation of the Ordinance

The Cecil County zoning ordinance essentially is of the cumulative type, with quite limited exceptions. Otherwise stated, such uses as were authorized in residential zone R-3 generally continued to be authorized uses in local commercial zone C-l and such uses as were authorized in the latter generally continued to be authorized uses in highway commercial zone C-2. The pertinent portions of zone R-3, zone C-l and zone C-2 (together with the pertinent limiting exceptions applying in C-l and C-2 zones) read as follows:

“Subsection 3. Residential Zone R-3 (High-Density)
This zone is residential in character, but permits the wide variety of dwelling types suitable to urban living.
a. The following uses are permitted:
1) all uses permitted in Residential Zone R-2 (Medium-Density);
2) multiple dwellings;
3) apartment hotels;
4) fraternity or sorority houses;
5) boarding houses and rooming houses;
6) mobile home subdivisions;
* * * ”
“Subsection 7. Local Commercial Zone C-l This zone is meant to provide for the daily shopping and business needs of nearby residences, and contains those retail, service, and office uses which serve primarily the local population,
a. The following uses are permitted:
*438 1) all uses permitted in the Residential Zone R-3 (High Density) but not special exceptions permitted therein;
* * * 11
“Subsection 8. Highway Commercial Zone C-2 This zone contains uses catering to highway travelers and also uses which serve the shopping and business needs of the local and regional population.
a. The following uses are permitted:
1) all uses permitted in Local Commercial Zone C-l, except dwellings;
* * * 1

To recapitulate, mobile home subdivisions are specifically authorized in the R-3 zone; continue to be authorized by blanket authorization in zone C-l; and continue to be authorized by blanket authorization in zone C-2, unless such use is prohibited by the limiting words in Section 5, subsection 8 a (1), supra.

Section 18 of the Cecil County zoning ordinance provides the following pertinent definitions:

“Dwelling, One-Family — A detached residence on a permanent foundation designed for or occupied by one family only.
Dwelling, Two-Family — A residence on a permanent foundation designed for or occupied by two families only, with separate housekeeping and cooking facilities for each.
Dwelling, Multiple-Family — A residence on a permanent foundation designed for or occupied by three or more families, with separate housekeeping and cooking facilities for each. 1 2
*439 Dwelling Unit — A group of rooms located, within a building and forming a single habitable unit with facilities which are used or intended to be used for living, sleeping, cooking and eating purposes. 3
Mobile Home — A movable or portable residence at least 34 feet in liveable length built on a chassis connected to utilities and designed without a permanent foundation for year-round living. 4
Mobile Home Camp — Any plot of ground which two or more mobile homes may be placed temporarily for not more than six (6) months of any year.
Mobile Home Park — Any plot of ground of at least four (4) acres upon which a minimum of five mobile home spaces are located.
Mobile Home Subdivision — A mobile home park, except that lots and streets must conform to subdivision regulations for single-family dwellings.”

The Board of Appeals had denied Racine’s application. In doing so it had in substance adopted the interpretation of the ordinance as expressed in a decision by a predecessor board on December 6, 1967 upon an identical application by Racine for permits as to other lots in the same subdivision. That board in rejecting the earlier application had said, inter alia:

“In perusing sub-section 8 a (1) which permits, as aforesaid, ‘All uses permitted in local commercial zone C-l, except dwellings’, the Board notes that in Local Commercial Zone C-l all uses are permitted in the Residential Zone R-3 (high density) but not special exceptions permitted therein. Residential Zone R-3, permits, as a matter of right, certain uses among which are mobile home subdivisions.
*440

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Bluebook (online)
332 A.2d 306, 24 Md. App. 435, 1975 Md. App. LEXIS 584, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/board-of-county-commissioners-v-racine-mdctspecapp-1975.