Richmarr Holly Hills, Inc. v. American PCS, L.P.

• Decision Date: 01 September 1996
• Docket Number: No. 1524,1524
• Citation: 701 A.2d 879,117 Md.App. 607
• Parties: RICHMARR HOLLY HILLS, INC. v. AMERICAN PCS, L.P., et al. ,
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

Page 607

117 Md.App. 607

701 A.2d 879

RICHMARR HOLLY HILLS, INC. v. AMERICAN PCS, L.P., et al.

No. 1524, Sept. Term, 1996.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

Oct. 30, 1997.

Rand D. Weinberg (Scott D. Miller and Weinberg & Weinberg, on the brief), Frederick, for appellant

Christine K. McSherry (Whiteford, Taylor & Preston, L.L.P., on the brief), Towson, for appellee, American.

John S. Mathias, County Atty., Frederick, for appellees, Board of Co. Commissioners and Michael C. Thompson, Zoning Administrator.

Argued before MOYLAN and HARRELL, JJ., and PAUL E. ALPERT, Judge (retired), Specially Assigned.

HARRELL, Judge.

Richmarr Holly Hills, Inc. (Richmarr), appellant, appeals from a decision of the Circuit Court for Frederick County (Stepler, J.) which affirmed the grant of a special exception by the Frederick County Board of Appeals (the Board). The special exception gave permission to American PCS, L.P. (APC) to erect and operate a 250 foot tall communications tower, with attendant equipment storage structures, on agriculturally-zoned land leased by APC from the American Veterans Association Frederick Post # 2, Inc. (Amvets). Richmarr poses one question for our resolution in this appeal:

Did the circuit court correctly uphold the Board's decision that the special exception use requested by APC was in harmony with the purpose and intent of the New Market Region Comprehensive Plan?

We respond in the affirmative and, thus, shall affirm the judgment.

FACTUAL AND REGULATORY CONTEXT

On 21 July 1995, APC, through an agent, filed with the Board a petition for special exception to permit the erection and operation of a 250 foot tall "self-supporting lattice [metal] As noted supra, the site of the proposed use was to be leased by APC from the Amvets. ² The total Amvets property comprised 26.37± acres of land zoned A-Agricultural. APC's proposed structures were to be sited on a fifty foot by fifty foot area located in the far southeasterly corner of the property (the property is roughly in the shape of a right-angled triangle), adjacent to the existing Interstate Highway 70 (I-70) ramp over Maryland Route 144 (Rte.144) (Exit 59 on I-70). ³ [t]here will be minimal adverse aesthetic impact in that the tower will be located in a large farm field where the natural contours of the land and the natural tree buffers south, east and west of the proposed site help reduce visual impact to the surrounding area. I-70 is located to the north and there are some existing tree buffer and large embankments to conceal a large portion of the tower from I-70 traffic. To the east, there is a tree buffer and natural contours for a buffer. APC will plant small trees around the exterior of the site to offer additional screening if requested.

                tower" as a base station for its wireless communications services network (including mobile and portable telephones, data and message services, and advanced paging services).  The tower would have installed on it "up to nine (9) panel antennas (each approximately 54" long by 10" wide by 12" deep) and two (2) microwave dishes (each 2' in diameter)."   In addition, two ground-level equipment storage cabinets (each "approximately 6' high by 5' long by 2' deep") were proposed, along with the prospect of a future equipment shelter, at the tower's base.  Coaxial antenna cables would connect the equipment cabinets to the antennas.  Lighting, as required by the Federal Aviation Administration, would be installed on the tower to alert aircraft to its presence.  No personnel would be stationed on-site, and only periodic visits of one or two times per month by maintenance/repair staff were projected.  The hours of operation were twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  A six to ten foot high gated, chain link fence was proposed to secure the physical location of the structures. 1
                Elsewhere on the property, the Amvets had constructed a forty foot by one hundred foot pavilion, restrooms, horseshoe pits, and playground, which facilities it used or rented for bull roasts, crab feasts, picnics, family and class reunions, outdoor meetings, and other recreational uses.  These activities and structures were described as being located on a portion of the property which was "flat ground unsuitable for the cultivation of hay" and "far removed" from the proposed tower location which was to be located on "the grassy farming area which rises to a steep incline."   As to the visibility of the proposed tower from surrounding properties, APC asserted in its written Statement of Justification submitted with the special exception petition that
                

Further, APC described the neighborhood surrounding the Amvets' property as follows:

The neighborhood to be considered in this application generally consists of agricultural and forest properties with residences on large tracts of land. Interstate 70 borders the property to the north; Route 144 to the south.

North: Agricultural and Some Residential Properties.

South: Agricultural and Some Residential Properties.

East: Large Agricultural Tract, Residential Properties and I-70.

West: Agricultural and Some Residential Properties.

Finally, and of ultimately greatest consequence (whether APC foresaw it so at the time or not), APC aerially asserted that the proposed special exception "will be in harmony with the general purpose and intent of the adopted and approved Master Plan for the New Market region in that adjoining properties to the immediate northeast of our site will permit similar uses by Special Exception ... and meets ... the New Market Region Plan zoning requirements."

At the time APC filed its petition for special exception (and at all pertinent times thereafter for purposes of this litigation), the Frederick County Code, at § 1-19-289, permitted a "communications tower" in an Agricultural Zoning District only upon the grant of a special exception. ⁴ The Zoning Ordinance provided generally for special exceptions, in pertinent part, as follows:

§ 1-19-48. Special exceptions.

* * * * * *

(b) A grant of a special exception is basically a matter of development policy, rather than an appeal based on administrative error or on hardship in a particular case. The board of appeals should consider the relation of the proposed use to the existing and future development patterns. A special exception shall be granted when the board finds that,

(1) The proposed use is in harmony with [ ⁵] the purpose and intent of the comprehensive development plan and of this chapter.

* * * * * *

(emphasis supplied).

Although the Zoning Ordinance contained other general requirements, as well as specific requirements, relative to special exceptions for a communication tower, this appeal presents no quarrel with the record of the instant case as to its containing evidence meeting those requirements. It is only with regard to § 1-19-48(b)(1) that we are called upon to provide judicial review of the grant of the special exception in this case.

The comprehensive development plan ⁶ of moment to the case sub judice was last visited in 1990 by the Board of County Commissioners of Frederick County. The 1990 Frederick County Comprehensive Plan replaced a portion of its 1984 predecessor and was expressed in two volumes. Volume I was the 1990 update of the 1984 Countywide Plan. Volume II, containing the more specific land use plans for the eight planning regions into which the County was divided, remained as it had been approved in 1984 when the Board of County Commissioners approved the 1990 version of Volume I. The 1990 Volume I (as did its predecessor) contemplated that the Volume II Regional Plans would be updated at a rate of two regions every four years.

The regional plan for the New Market area, within which the Amvets property was located, was updated and approved

                by the Board of County Commissioners in 1993.  Concurrent with the 1993 approval of the New Market Regional Plan, the Board of County Commissioners approved a new zoning map (comprehensive rezoning) for that region which retained the Amvets property in an Agricultural Zoning District, despite the fact that both the 1990 Countywide Plan and the 1993 New Market Regional Plan envisioned the property as someday being devoted to office-research or limited manufacturing uses in the ORI Zoning District. 7  The explanation for the difference between the recommendations of the 1990 Countywide Plan and 1993 New Market Regional Plan on the one hand and the 1993 comprehensive rezoning action on the other can be appreciated to some extent by the following language found in Volume I of the 1990 Countywide Plan at Pages IV-20 and 21
                

THE TIMING OF DEVELOPMENT

While the update of the Regional land use maps will identify a pattern of development for a 20 year time frame, they will not directly address how quickly or slowly that development may take place. Left unregulated by local government, the rate of development is the result of many factors which are difficult to predict for any individual area.

Nevertheless, it is an objective of this Plan not only to recommend the location of new development, but when that development may most appropriately take place. The location of development will be accomplished by identifying The following factors will be considered in developing the recommended 5 year zoning map:

future land uses on a 20 year land use plan map, while the timing of development will be recommended through a 5 year zoning map. In other words, the long range plan will be implemented through limited zoning changes in each Region based on anticipated development needs over the following five years. Areas which are shown for development in the long range but which are not anticipated to be developed or are not appropriate for zoning over the 5 year time frame will be zoned Agricultural. The anticipated development needs for the five year zoning time frame will take into consideration the development potential found in the...