Anne Arundel Cnty. v. Bell

• Decision Date: 21 April 2015
• Docket Number: No. 29, Sept. Term, 2014.,29, Sept. Term, 2014.
• Citation: 442 Md. 539,113 A.3d 639
• Parties: ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, Maryland, et al. v. Steve BELL, et al.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

442 Md. 539

113 A.3d 639

ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY, Maryland, et al.

v.Steve BELL, et al.

No. 29, Sept. Term, 2014.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

April 21, 2015.

Gregory J. Swain, Senior Asst. Cty. Atty. (David A. Plymyer, Cty. Atty., Annapolis, MD, Mark F. Gabler, Rich and Henderson, P.C., Annapolis, MD), on briefs, for petitioners.

G. Macy Nelson (David S. Lynch, Law Office of G. Macy Nelson, LLC, Towson, MD), on brief, for respondents.

Jon A. Mueller, Esquire, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Annapolis, MD, for Amicus Curiae brief of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc.

Argued before BARBERA, C.J., HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, GREENE, ADKINS, McDONALD, WATTS, JJ.

Opinion

HARRELL, J.

Respondents in this matter, as plaintiffs, challenged in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County the adoption in 2011 by the County Council for Anne Arundel County of a comprehensive zoning ordinance for a large portion of Anne Arundel County. In order to maintain their litigation, they must demonstrate appropriate standing to do so. Respondents assert that property owner standing principles apply to a judicial challenge to comprehensive zoning legislation and that they satisfied those principles. We disagree. Plaintiffs wishing to challenge in Maryland courts the legislative action adopting a comprehensive zoning are required to demonstrate taxpayer standing. Respondents do not allege facts sufficient to meet the correct standing requirement. Thus, the dismissal by the Circuit Court of the two suits in the present case was correct. The contrary position taken by the Court of Special Appeals in this case must be reversed.

I. Statement of the Case

Bill 12–11, a comprehensive zoning ordinance adopted in 2011 by the County Council for Anne Arundel County (“the County”), embraced Councilmanic Districts I and IV, comprising approximately 59,045 individual parcels or lots totaling 4,265 acres in area. The two Districts include most of the property in the vicinity of the Baltimore/Washington International/Thurgood Marshall Airport and all of the property along the Baltimore–Washington Parkway corridor in Anne Arundel County. Of those 59,045 individual parcels or lots, Bill 12–11 changed the previous zoning classifications of 264 parcels or lots and maintained essentially the pre-existing zoning of the rest. Bill 12–11 was the culmination by local government of a 5–year comprehensive and thorough consideration of the zoning in the Districts.

Bill 12–11 was challenged by various Anne Arundel County property owners and community associations (“the Citizens”),¹ who objected to some, but not all, of the rezonings. Two suits were filed in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, which were consolidated ultimately. Titled In the Matter of Steve Bell, et al., C–11–161930, the Citizens filed on 14 June 2011 an Amended Petition for Judicial Review or, in the Alternative, for a Writ of Administrative Mandamus (“Amended Petition for Judicial Review”). Styled as Steve Bell, et al. v. Anne Arundel County, Maryland, C–11–163163, the Citizens filed on 5 August 2011 a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment, in which they challenged the rezoning of multiple parcels of land, alleging that the County engaged in illegal spot and contract zoning with regard to those rezonings and failed to provide the public with the required notice of the proposed zoning changes.² Several Anne Arundel County property owners and ground leaseholders whose properties had been rezoned to classifications desired by them (collectively, with the County, referred to as “Petitioners”)³ intervened to protect their interests. Petitioners moved to dismiss the Citizens' suit, arguing, inter alia,⁴ that the Citizens lacked standing. Following a hearing, the Circuit Court granted Petitioners' motion to dismiss, concluding that the Citizens lacked standing because they failed to meet the burden of proving special aggrievement. Suggesting that being an adjoining, confronting, or nearby property owner is “[o]ne means of establishing a prima facie case of aggrievement in Maryland,” the trial court emphasized that it could not find any reported Maryland cases in which “a party in a declaratory judgment action has been found to have prima facie aggrievement or standing to challenge comprehensive rezoning legislation based on ownership of property nearby or in proximity to property that was rezoned.” Therefore, the Circuit Court concluded that the Citizens did not have prima facie standing to challenge Bill 12–11 through a declaratory judgment action. The hearing court also concluded that the Citizens' claims that the select rezonings would result in increases in traffic, decreases in property values, and changes in the character of the neighborhoods were insufficient to show special aggrievement because the court “fail[ed] to find that [the Citizens'] interests in the matter [were] any different than the interests of a member of the general public.”

On direct appeal, the Court of Special Appeals disagreed with the Circuit Court, concluding that the Citizens enjoyed property owner standing to challenge Bill 12–11. Bell v. Anne Arundel County, 215 Md.App. 161, 79 A.3d 976 (2013). The Court of Special Appeals, relying on 120 W. Fayette St., LLLP v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 407 Md. 253, 964 A.2d 662 (2009) [“Superblock I ”] and Long Green Valley Association v. Bellevale Farms, Inc., 205 Md.App. 636, 46 A.3d 473 (2012), aff'd on other grounds, 432 Md. 292, 68 A.3d 843 (2013), rejected the County's contention that the prima facie aggrievement standard only applies to challenges to administrative land use decisions, concluding instead that it also applies to comprehensive zonings like Bill 12–11. Bell, 215 Md.App. at 180, 79 A.3d at 987 ; see id. at 179, 79 A.3d at 987 (“[W]e perceive no logical or practical reason why we should remove this case from the application of the principles espoused in [Superblock I ] and Long Green Valley simply because [protestants] have challenged a comprehensive zoning ordinance, as opposed to another form of land use regulation or governmentally-imposed development control.”). The intermediate appellate court determined that the property owner prima facie standard of presumed special aggrievement applies to judicial challenges to comprehensive zoning legislative actions, as well as quasi-judicial and other administrative land use actions generally.

The intermediate appellate court applied, in two stages, the prima facie aggrievement standard to Parcel 114 on Tax Map 37 (“Parcel 114”), which was reclassified from a lower density residential zone to one allowing commercial offices and similar uses. First, the court concluded that properties belonging to two of the Citizens (William Chapin and Steve Bell) were close enough by distance to support “almost prima facie aggrievement” because they were located within approximately 500 feet of Parcel 114. Bell, 215 Md.App. at 184, 79 A.3d at 989–90. Second, the court examined whether the Citizens' “ personal or property rights ha[d] been specially and adversely affected by the rezoning in a way different from those of the general public—what the Ray court called ‘plus factors.’ ” Bell, 215 Md.App. at 183, 79 A.3d at 989 (citing Ray v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 430 Md. 74, 85, 59 A.3d 545, 551–52 (2013) ). Acknowledging that an increase in traffic, by itself, is insufficient to establish property owner standing, the court discussed the difference between an injury based on noise from increased traffic and an injury based on increased traffic in general, and concluded ultimately that the noise emanating from projected increased traffic and increased commercial activity was sufficient to show that the Citizens were specially aggrieved. Bell, 215 Md.App. at 186, 79 A.3d at 991.

Because that court concluded that at least one of the Citizens was prima facie aggrieved, based solely on the proximity of his/her property to a single property rezoned in Bill 12–11, all of the Citizens had standing with respect to the select parcels rezoned in Bill 12–11. See Bell, 215 Md.App. at 180–81, 79 A.3d at 987–88 ; see State Center, LLC v. Lexington Charles Ltd. P'ship, 438 Md. 451, 550, 92 A.3d 400, 458 (2014) (quoting Board of Supervisors of Elections v. Smallwood, 327 Md. 220, 233 n. 7, 608 A.2d 1222, 1228 n. 7 (1992) (quoting Board of License Commissioners v. Haberlin, 320 Md. 399, 404, 578 A.2d 215, 217 (1990) (“[W]here there exists a party having standing to bring an action or take an appeal, we shall not ordinarily inquire as to whether another party on the same side also has standing.”))). The Court of Special Appeals vacated the judgment of the Circuit Court and remanded the case for further proceedings. Bell, 215 Md.App. at 192–93, 79 A.3d at 994–95.

Petitioners, in their successful petition for a writ of certiorari to us, asked us to consider three questions:

1. Whether the prima facie aggrievement standard established in [Bryniarski v. Montgomery County Board of Appeals, 247 Md. 137, 230 A.2d 289, 294 (1967) ] should be expanded beyond challenges to administrative land use decisions to include challenges to comprehensive zoning?

2. Whether the “almost prima facie ” standard as established in [Ray v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 430 Md. 74, 59 A.3d 545 (2013) ] should be expanded beyond challenges to administrative land use decisions to include challenges to comprehensive zoning?

3. Whether noise from a predicted increase in traffic constitutes “special damages”?

Anne Arundel County v. Bell, 437 Md. 422, 86 A.3d 1274 (2014) (granting certiorari). We answer the first two questions in the negative. Accordingly, no answer to the third question is necessary.

The first two questions are, at their core, one and the same: are the principles of property owner standing applicable to plaintiffs maintaining a judicial challenge to the adoption of a comprehensive zoning ordinance, as has been the standard by which judicial challenges to quasi-judicial and...