Friends of Frederick Cnty. v. Town of New Mkt.

• Decision Date: 25 August 2015
• Docket Number: No. 2140, Sept. Term, 2012.,2140, Sept. Term, 2012.
• Parties: FRIENDS OF FREDERICK COUNTY et al. v. TOWN OF NEW MARKET.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

224 Md.App. 185

120 A.3d 769

FRIENDS OF FREDERICK COUNTY et al.

v.TOWN OF NEW MARKET.

No. 2140, Sept. Term, 2012.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Aug. 25, 2015.

Norman G. Knopf (Benjamin Arem, Knopf & Brown, on the brief), Rockville, MD, for appellant.

William C. Wantz, Hagerstown, MD, for appellee.

KEHOE, HOTTEN, and NAZARIAN, JJ.^*

Opinion

KEHOE, J.

In this appeal, we consider whether the Circuit Court for Frederick County, the Honorable Theresa M. Adams, presiding, erred when it concluded that the comprehensive plan¹ for the Town of New Market complies with state law. The appellants are Friends of Frederick County, a non-profit community advocacy association, the Audubon Society of Central Maryland, Inc., and a number of individuals asserting either taxpayer or aggrieved party standing.² The appellee is the Town. Appellants present one issue which we have reworded:

Does the Town's Comprehensive Plan comply with the requirements of Title 3 of Division I of the Land Use Article?

The circuit court answered “yes” to this question. We believe that the court was correct and will affirm its judgment.

Background

The Town is a municipal corporation located in Frederick County. In 2005, the Town, through its town council, adopted a comprehensive plan (the “Plan”). On November 17, 2010, the Town amended the Plan by adding a water resources element and a municipal growth element (the “MGE”). Of particular relevance to the present appeal, the MGE proposed the annexation of various tracts of land adjacent to the present Town boundaries (the “Annexation Areas”). The Annexation Areas are currently zoned for agricultural uses or other low-intensity uses by the Frederick County Zoning Ordinance. The MGE proposes that, upon annexation, the Town will change the zoning classifications to permit higher-density residential and mixed commercial and industrial uses. {E. 182–83.} On October 12, 2011, the Town further amended the Plan by adopting three documents as part thereof: a 2011 Supplement, together with two addenda that we will refer to as the “2011 Supplement Documents.” In sum, as of 2011, the Town's Plan consisted of: (1) the 2005 comprehensive plan document; (2) the 2010 MGE; (3) the 2010 Water Resources Element; and (4) the 2011 Supplement Documents. (Although we may refer to these components individually in this opinion, we will refer to them, as a whole, as the “Plan.”)

The appellants do not agree with the proposal in the MGE that the Town annex and rezone the Annexation Areas. On February 14, 2011, that is, prior to the Town's adoption of the 2011 Supplement Documents, appellants filed a complaint in the Circuit Court for Frederick County contending that the town council failed to comply with various provisions of what was then Md. Ann.Code (2012) Article 66B³ when it adopted the MGE in 2010. Appellants requested that the circuit court: (i) declare the Plan, specifically its MGE component, invalid; (ii) declare any zoning or annexation completed while the invalid MGE was in force void and invalid; and (iii) enjoin the Town from taking any zoning or annexation actions until the Town had a proper Plan in place.

On May 11, 2012, that is, after the Town adopted the 2011 Supplement Documents, appellants filed an amended complaint. In the amended complaint, appellants again contended that the Plan, as adopted, was invalid because the Plan failed to comply with the then-existing state law requirements in several respects. (These contentions are essentially the same as some of those raised by appellants in this court, and will be discussed later in this opinion.)

In response, the Town filed a motion for summary judgment. The Town argued that its Plan satisfied the applicable legal requirements. In support of its argument, the Town attached a copy of the Plan, color-coded to indicate which sections of the Plan addressed the subject matter deficiencies complained of by appellants.

Appellants opposed the motion for summary judgment. They argued that the Plan's alleged compliance with the statutory requirements was a matter of form rather than substance. They also asserted that the Plan was substantively so inadequate that it thwarted the intent of the Code's requirements.⁴ {E. 436–37.} Appellants also alleged that there were “numerous material facts in genuine dispute” dealing with whether the Town complied with the Code. {E. 436.}

To support these contentions, appellants submitted affidavits from three experienced and qualified experts: Joseph R. Davis, a land use planner; Michael Siegel, an expert in the fields of local and regional fiscal planning and forecasting; and Jawahar Mehra, a traffic engineer. Messrs. Davis and Siegel opined that the Plan failed to satisfy specific requirements of the Land Use Article. For example, Mr. Davis stated in his affidavit that the Plan's forecasts for new road construction failed to take into account the development of the “Delaplaine” and the “Ganley” farms, which are part of the Annexation Area; that the Plan's calculations of the traffic capacities of existing roadways was inaccurate and flawed; and that the Plan failed to provide cost estimates for the construction of new roads, even though such costs can be calculated.

Mr. Siegel opined that the methodology used by the Town to calculate its foreseeable population growth was flawed; that the Plan failed to take into account the fiscal impact of maintaining, as opposed to building, new roads; and that the Plan failed to consider additional public safety expenses that would be required as a result of the development contemplated by the Plan.

For his part, Mr. Mehra concluded that the Plan's transportation element was deficient because (1) it relied upon erroneous data as to the capacities of existing roads; (2) it failed to consider the effect of the new development proposed by the Plan upon existing roadways; and (3) it did not contain cost estimates for new road construction even though such information is required by what is now LU § 3–105(b)(3)⁵ and is available—in approximate terms—from the Maryland Department of Transportation.

After a hearing, the circuit court granted the Town's motion for summary judgment. In a written opinion, the court concluded that the case did not present contested issues of material fact but that the dispositive issue was one of law, namely, whether the Plan, as written, complied with the applicable requirements set out in the Land Use Article. The court concluded that the statutes in question were unambiguous and that the Plan satisfied them. Relevant to the issues raised on appeal, the court concluded that the relevant provisions of the Land Use Article required the Plan to enunciate “policy conclusions, and not the underlying facts and studies used to reach those conclusions.” The court concluded its analysis by stating:

Maryland courts are without authority to interfere with any exercise of the legislative prerogative within constitutional limits. S. Easton Neighborhood Ass'n v. Town of Easton, 387 Md. 468 (2005) (quoting Heaps v. Cobb, 185 Md. 372, 379 (1945) ). It is inevitable that when a municipality proposes annexations or zoning reclassifications, there will likely be affected parties who object to the action. However, this Court does not retain the authority to supplant the policy decisions of the legislature and local municipalities when those municipalities have fully complied with state law. Any judicial substitution of zoning plans based on preference or opinion, even those of three experts supplied by the Plaintiffs, would be an impermissible infringement on the legislative function.

It is true that the Smart Growth policies enacted by the Maryland legislature in recent years have created new burdens for municipal bodies in zoning action and land administration. However, this Court has reviewed the Plan and its amendments and determined that [the Town] has fully complied with the requirements set forth under the relevant zoning statutes under the Land Use Article. There are no remaining material factual disputes, and the Town's motion for summary judgment is granted. {E. 4546.}

Appellants timely appealed. {E. 9.}

Analysis

I.

We review the grant of a motion for summary judgment de novo. See Murray v. TransCare Maryland, 203 Md.App. 172, 198–99, 37 A.3d 987 (2012), aff'd 431 Md. 225, 64 A.3d 887 (2013). In undertaking this exercise, we independently review the record in the light most favorable to the non-moving party to decide whether there are issues of material fact. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Inc. v. Neal, 398 Md. 705, 714, 922 A.2d 538 (2007).

We view the dispositive issue in this case to be one of statutory construction. As the Court of Appeals explained in Stickley v. State Farm Fire, 431 Md. 347, 358–59, 65 A.3d 141 (2013) :

The cardinal rule of statutory interpretation is to ascertain and effectuate the intent of the Legislature. Statutory construction begins with the plain language of the statute, and ordinary, popular understanding of the English language dictates interpretation of its terminology. In construing the plain language, a court may neither add nor delete language so as to reflect an intent not evidenced in the plain and unambiguous language of the statute; nor may it construe the statute with forced or subtle interpretations that limit or extend its application. Statutory text should be read so that no word, clause, sentence or phrase is rendered superfluous or nugatory.... It is also clear that we avoid a construction of the statute that is unreasonable, illogical, or inconsistent with common sense.

We analyze the contested provisions of Maryland's Insurance Article in the context of the statutory scheme and construe the plain language so that the various sections of the article do not conflict with one another.... In addition, the meaning of the plainest language is controlled by the context in which it appears. As this Court has stated, because it is part of the context, related stat

...