Howard v. Marshall

4 Balt. C. Rep. 632
Baltimore City Superior Court·Decided October 19, 1927·Published

Opinion

SOLTER, J.

The petition in this case is filed for the purpose of having those of the defendants who constitute the Board of Zoning Appeals, and Jefferson C. Grinnalds, Secretary and Engineer of the Board of Zoning Appeals, hear and determine their appeal from the decision of the Buildings Engineer to issue a permit to a certain William Cook to use the property No. 1217 St. Paul street as an “undertaking business or establishment.” The petitioners are the owners of the property 1205 St. Paul street, three doors south of No. [633]*6331217 St. Paul street, and they allege they were and are interested persons dissatisfied with the decision of the Buildings Engineer, and as such did properly file their appeal therefrom to the Board of Zoning Appeals. The petition shows that the permit was approved by the Mayor under Section 2 of Ordinance 825, and the petitioners are proceeding mainly under Sections 3 and 4 of the same ordinance. An answer has been filed by the defendants denying the jurisdiction of the Board of Zoning Appeals, to which a demurrer has been filed by the petitioners. William Cook, the person to whom the permit was issued, has filed his petition to be permitted to intervene. The plaintiffs have questioned his right by a demurrer to his petition. The pleadings, apart from the intervention petition, exact of the Court a determination of the question whether when a permit for one of the uses of the property, specifically enumerated in Section 2 of the ordinance, has received the approval of the Mayor as provided therein, such use must also be sanctioned by the Board of Zoning Appeals upon proper appeal to it, upon the allegation that such proposed use “because of the particular location of said land, buildings and structures and the nature of the proposed use, would create hazards of fire or disease, and would menace the public security, health or morals.”

1.

It is conceded that Ordinance No. 825, the one in question, is a codification merely of three existing ordinances pertaining to changes in use of buildings or laud; that they emanate from different historical sources and are all in force substantially as they were before codification. To understand their application to the facts of the present case, it is only necessary to consider their history while operating concurrently for the purpose of seeing how they stood with relation to each other during their process of change by repealing and re-enacting ordinances. A convenient starting point will be the time of the enactment of the First Zoning Ordinance, a residuum of which constitutes the third ordinance codified in Ordinance 825. As before stated, No. 825 is a codification of three existing ordinances which for convenience will be described herein as “Special Ordinance,” “Mayor’s Ordinance” and “Zoning Ordinance.”

2.

The first Zoning Ordinance was enacted by the Council as No. 922 and was approved May 19, 1923. At this time the Special Ordinance and the Mayor’s Ordinance were in effect. The Special Ordinance is a general ordinance which requires a permit by a special ordinance if a building is to be constructed, reconstructed, altered or repaired or used for certain specified purposes if the construction, alteration or repair thereof exceeds one quarter of the value of the building. Sixteen uses were specifically mentioned as requiring this Special Ordinance, and eleven of them were specifically incorporated in the First Zoning Ordinance as being prohibited in certain sections of the city (residence, first and second commercial). The uses found in both ordinances are manufacture of cotton wadding, explosives, refining of petroleum, rendering of fats and lard, hair factory, lime kiln, tannery, abattoir, glue factory, pulverizing charcoal and stock yards.

At the time of the passage of the First Zoning Ordinance there was also in existence the Mayor’s Ordinance, which is Section 2 of the present No. 825 under consideration. In brief the Mayor’s Ordinance provided that certain buildings would be limited as to location, and that no permit should be given by the Building Inspector (now Engineer) for the erection of any such buildings, nor should any building not already used for any of the enumerated purposes be converted or used for any such uses without the approval of the Mayor. At the time of the passage of the First Zoning Ordinance there were twenty-seven of which prohibited uses in the Mayor’s Ordinance and in the First Ordinance seventeen were expressly excluded from certain sections of the city (chiefly residence, first and second commercial). Those specifically mentioned in both the Mayor’s and the Zoning Ordinance are garages, blacksmith shops, junk shops, terra cotta manufacture, paint factory, candle factory, lumber yards, planing mills, iron mills, i'oundaries, breweries, distilleries, gas works, acid works, fertilizer factories and laundries. In other words, those uses herein mentioned required a Special Ordinance or approval by the Mayor, and were also prohibited as to certain sections of the city by the direct terms of the Zoning Ordinance. It might be well at this point to pause [634] and observe tbe interplay of these ordinances, but in order to continue the history of these ordinances this will be deferred.

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Howard v. Marshall, 4 Balt. C. Rep. 632 (Md. Super. Ct. 1927).

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