Meginniss v. Trustees of Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital

• Decision Date: 15 May 1967
• Docket Number: No. 285,285
• Citation: 246 Md. 704,229 A.2d 417
• Parties: Frances H. MEGINNISS et al. v. TRUSTEES OF the SHEPPARD AND ENOCH PRATT HOSPITAL et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 704

246 Md. 704

229 A.2d 417

Frances H. MEGINNISS et al. v. TRUSTEES OF the SHEPPARD AND ENOCH PRATT HOSPITAL et al.

No. 285.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

May 15, 1967.

Ernest C. Trimble, Towson, for appellants.

M. William Adelson and Eugene P. Smith, Baltimore (Andrew E. Adelson, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellees.

Before HORNEY, MARBURY, BARNES, McWILLIAMS and FINAN, JJ.

BARNES, Judge.

The appeal in this case was taken from an order of May 27, 1966, by the Circuit Court for Baltimore County (Menchine, J.), affirming an order of the Baltimore County Board of Appeals. The Board had approved the reclassification of 16.809 acres of land in Baltimore County, owned by the Trustees of the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital (Sheppard Pratt), one of the appellees, for residential apartment use with a special exception for elevator apartment buildings, subject to certain restrictions. The other appellee, Western Woods, Inc., is the contract purchaser of the reclassified land and joined with the owner, Sheppard Pratt, in filing the initial petition for the reclassification and special exception.

Sheppard Pratt originally owned 400 acres of land in Baltimore County. The 16.809 acre tract involved in this appeal (the subject property) was created by the involuntary severance of the subject property from the original 400 acre tract by the installation through the northern portion of the 400 acre tract of a major four-lane arterial highway, West Burke Avenue, connecting Charles Street on the west with York Road on the east. When the Comprehensive Land Use Map was adopted by Baltimore County on November 14, 1955, the proposed course for West Burke Avenue did not contemplate this severance of the subject property from the original 400 acre tract. A substantial portion of the subject property has pronounced grades; 32% of the land has grades ranging between 11% and 20%, and 23% of the land has grades ranging between 20% and 25%. There are also substantial rock deposits on the subject property.

At the time the Comprehensive Land Use Map was adopted in 1955, no zoning study was made of the large Sheppard Pratt tract, as Sheppard Pratt was using the tract for institutional and agricultural purposes and did not press for any particular zoning. Except for a strip, 150 feet deep, along Chesapeake Avenue, zoned in an R-10 zone (residence-one-family, lots not less than 10,000 square feet), the bulk of the Sheppard Pratt tract was zoned in a low density R-20 zone (residence-one-family, lots not less than 20,000 square feet). In 1955, only two acres of the subject property were sewerable and the then available water facilities were inadequate for apartment development.

The subject property is roughly triangular in shape. The western boundary, forming the base of the triangle, is approximately 700 feet long. The northern boundary, forming a side of the triangle, is approximately 2315 feet long and the southern boundary, forming the other side of the triangle, is approximately 2385 feet long. The two sides of the triangle form an apex on the east, approximately 53 feet wide. The subject property is bounded on the west by old Charles Street, known now as Charles Street Avenue, and on the south by West Burke Avenue. A portion of the northern boundary is Chesapeake Avenue; the remainder of the northern boundary is formed by the rear yards of houses, in an R-6 zone, fronting on Dixie Drive. Bordering the subject property on the east is the land of the Towson State College.

Access to the subject property is proposed through an entrance on Charles Street Avenue and at two points on West Burke Avenue. No access is contemplated from chesapeake Avenue and the order of the Board prohibited such access.

The road patterns surrounding the subject property have changed since November, 1955. West Burke Avenue was under construction when the case was heard by the Board in 1965. This east-west arterial street runs south of the Towson residential area and was designed to siphon off traffic using Charles Street Avenue and Chesapeake Avenue. West Burke Avenue is 48 feet wide from curb to curb and has a capacity of approximately 25,000 vehicles a day. Traffic experts estimated that it would initially carry approximately 8000 vehicles a day and a greater number ultimately. Osler Drive, intersecting West Burke Avenue from the south, gives access to St. Joseph's and Sheppard Pratt Hospitals and connects with Stevenson Lane, a four-lane road running between Charles Street and York Road and thence to the Loch Raven Boulevard area. Osler Drive was also under construction at the time of the hearing before the Board and Stevenson Lane had recently been completed. Charles Street Avenue, adjacent to the subject property, is a three-lane highway. Improved Charles Street, which intersects West Burke Avenue near the subject property, is a four-lane highway built after November, 1955, and constitutes one of the better radial routes emanating northerly from Baltimore City to the Baltimore County Beltway. It also serves to feed traffic into the Towson commercial area by way of West Burke Avenue.

Directly south of the subject property, across West Burke Avenue, is 67 acres of a 100 acre tract of land acquired for the expansion of Towson State College. Farther south are three large hospitals. At the time of the hearing before the Board, two of these hospitals were nearing completion. One was the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, a 400 bed general hospital and large medical center with apartment units for the staff, constructed on 57 acres of land at an approximate cost of $12,000,000. The other was St. Joseph's Hospital, an eight-story, 322 bed hospital with a school for 120 nurse, erected on a 27 1/2 acre tract. Sheppard Pratt continues to operate its facility on approximately 100 acres of land. South of the Sheppard Pratt buildings is the property of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, used for institutional purposes, and the Rodgers Forge development of over 5000 group houses.

East of the subject property, bounding on West Burke Avenue, is the Towson State College. Nearby, on the east, is the property of Baltimore County, improved with a fountain-type arrangement to treat sewage and at the time of the hearing, used as a construction storage yard for cinders, salt, trucks, graders, pipe, tools, bulldozers and other County Public Works equipment. Still farther east are th Esso Office Building, the Blue Cross Office Building, Valley View and other apartments and finally, the commercial uses along York Road and the filling station at the corner of York Road and West Burke Avenue.

North of the subject property, between the Towson commercial area on the east and Bellona Avenue on the west, are primarily residential and institutional areas, most of the lot development being in either R-6 or R-10 zones. Southland Hills, an R-6 development running along Dixie Drive, abuts the subject property to the north. The land directly opposite the subject property on the north side of Chesapeake Avenue is zoned...