Wakefield v. Kraft

• Decision Date: 16 April 1953
• Docket Number: No. 89,89
• Parties: WAKEFIELD et al. v. KRAFT et al.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

Page 136

202 Md. 136

96 A.2d 27

WAKEFIELD et al. v. KRAFT et al.

No. 89.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

April 16, 1953.

Charles E. Hogg, Ellicott City (Jerome A. Loughran, Ellicott City, on the brief), for appellants.

Paul F. Due, Baltimore (Wilbur D. Preston, Jr., and Due, Nickerson, Whiteford & Taylor, Baltimore, on the brief), for appellees.

Before SOBELOFF, C. J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS, HENDERSON and HAMMOND, JJ.

HAMMOND, Judge.

We are called on to review the action of the Circuit Court for Howard County, invalidating the rezoning by the County Commissioners from Residential to Commercial A, of a tract of land at the intersection of Columbia Road and Montgomery Road. Marcus A. Wakefield, Jr. and his wife, the appellants, in June, 1946 acquired an unimproved rectangular eight-acre tract of land at this location. Before the appellants bought the land, there existed three commercial uses in the immediate neighborhood--a combination filling station, tavern and lunchroom on the northwest corner of the intersection, a dance hall, skating rink and restaurant about seven hundred feet south on the Old Columbia Pike, and on Montgomery Road to the north, a filling station.

About two years later, the General Assembly, by Chapter 19 of the Extra Session of 1948, authorized the County Commissioners of Howard County to adopt a comprehensive plan of zoning and to enact rules, regulations and restrictions as to the erection and use of the land and buildings. On July 27 of that year, after months of study by an expert, and consideration of his recommendations, all of Howard County was zoned either Residential Commercial A or Commercial B. The Wakefield property was zoned residential.

Between Ellicott City and the Wakefield property are 85 or 90 houses on the Columbia Pike. Almost all of the development along this highway to the intersection is residential. To the south are four dwellings constructed recently at substantial cost, the first of which adjoins the Wakefield property.

In 1949 the Wakefields sold the State 4 acres of their land and there has been erected on it an Armory; such use is permitted in a residential use area. The remaining part of the Wakefield tract comprises some 4.3 acres and runs about 500 feet along Montgomery Road from the Armory lot boundary to the intersection, and then some 420 feet along Columbia Pike. This is the tract which occassions this case.

In February, 1952 the appellants petitioned the County Commissioners for reclassification of the lot. After following the statutory procedures set up by the Enabling Act, including hearings therein called for, the County Commissioners made the reclassification. It was not recommended by the Zoning Commissioner, who must make a recommendation when there is to be an amendment to the zoning law. It was opposed by some of the neighbors, although it was favored by others. Some of the protesting neighbors filed a bill in the Circuit Court of Howard County to enjoin the reclassification and amendment of the zoning maps, on the ground that the action of the County Commissioners was unconstitutional, invalid and void, in that it constituted spot zoning, was arbitrary, and not in the public interest but merely an accomodation to the property owners. The Court granted the injunction and this appeal followed.

The testimony showed that the Wakefields had entered into a contract to sell the land to the Parlett Motor Company, the contract being conditioned on successful completion of the rezoning.

In deciding the challenge to the action of the County Commissioners functioning as a municipal legislature, the Court must use rigorous self-discipline, as it must always in such cases, to avoid substituting its judgment or views as to the wisdom or soundness of the action taken for that of the Legislative body to whom such questions are confided exclusive under our governmental system of separation of powers, and only to decide whether the action is illegal, arbitrary or discriminatory.

The judicial charts which have been drawn, case by case, in zoning decisions reveal the reefs and shallows to be avoided in this respect and the channels to be followed to sound conclusions.

Where the legislative body of a municipality, under powers granted by the Legislature, has enacted a zoning ordinance, the Court's function in review is restricted and its scope is narrow. Such an ordinance, an exercise of the police power, enjoys a presumption in favor of its validity. One attacking it, to be successful, must show affirmatively and clearly that it is arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory or illegal. This presumption of reasonableness and constitutionality applies to rezoning as well as to original zoning, though not with as great force. This is so because it is presumed that the original zoning was well planned, and designed to be permanent; it must appear, therefore, that either there was a mistake in the original zoning or that the character of the neighborhood was changed to an extent which justifies the amendatory action. N.W. Merchants Term. v. O'Rourke, 191 Md. 171, 191, 60 A.2d 743; Kracke v. Weinberg, Md., 79 A.2d 387, and Kinney v. City of Joliet, 411 Ill. 289, 103 N.E.2d 473.

The Court will not substitute its judgment for that of the legislative body if the question decided was fairly debatable. Zahn v. Board of Public Works, 274 U.S. 325, 47 S.Ct. 594, 71 L.Ed. 1074; Anne Arundel County v. Ward, 186 Md. 330, 46 A.2d 684, 165 A.L.R. 816; Anne Arundel County v. Snyder, 186 Md. 342, 46 A.2d 689; Francis v. MacGill Md., 75 A.2d 91, 94; and Hoffman v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, Md., 79 A.2d 367. It is not the function, duty or right of a Court to zone or rezone, but only to determine whether the legislative body has properly applied the governing law to the facts. If there is room for reasonable debate as to whether the facts justify the municipal legislature in deciding the need for its enactment, it must be upheld. It is only when there is no room for reasonable debate, or a record barren of supporting facts, that the Court can declare the legislative action arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory or an unequal application of the law.

In Chayt v. Maryland Jockey Club, 179 Md. 390, 18 A.2d 856, 858, the Baltimore City Council amended the zoning ordinance to reclassify several lots of ground contiguous to the Pimlico Race Track from residential to first commercial. The neighbors urged the invalidity of the rezoning. The Court said that restrictions can be imposed on private property only when justified for the protection of the public health, morals, safety or welfare. The Court restricted the application of the rule, saying: 'We have been cited no case applying this principle to a situation of rezoning from a higher to a lower class. In order to impose restrictions some valid exercise of the police power must be proven. But such power is invoked for the protection of the property restricted and not to give protection to surrounding property. It is basic to the law of property that a man shall be allowed the widest use of his property consonant with the protection of his neighbors. In order to justify therefore a restriction of that use, it must be shown that such restriction is in some manner related to the police power of the sovereign.' The substance of this quotation is repeated with approval in N. W. Merchants Term. v. O'Rourke, supra. The statement of the Chayt case that rezoning from a higher to a lower classification need not be based on a valid exercise of the police power is undoubtedly too broad and too general. See criticism of the case in Page v. City of Portland, 178 Or. 632, 165 P.2d 280, 285. Zoning is legislative action, passed in an effort to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number. Thus, when a legislative body in this collective, communal lawmaking restricts the use of property, those restricted are entitled to the reliance that all others similarly situated will be similarly restricted. A rezoning ordinance may not do violence to this principle. This is to say that such an ordinance must not be unreasonable or discriminatory, or deny equal protection of law. Such an ordinance must not amount to the granting of a special privilege. Ellicott v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 180 Md. 176, 23 A.2d 649; Yokley, Zoning Law and Practice, Sec. 86; DeBlasiis v. Bartell and Oliveto, 143 Pa.Super. 485, 18 A.2d 478. The Court in Page v. City of Portland, supra [178 Or. 632, 165 P.2d 283], said: 'While the City Council has wide discretion in enacting zoning ordinances, it has no right or authority to place restrictions on one person's property and by mere favor remove such restrictions from another's property. There must be reasonable ground or basis for the discrimination.' On the other hand, if there is public need for the change, in the opinion of the municipal legislature, and this opinion is based upon actual, though disputed, grounds, the legislative action will be sustained. The Page case continues after the quotation just above given: 'Whether there has been such a substantial change of conditions in a use district as to warrant the enactment of an amendatory zoning ordinance is primarily a question for the Council to determine, and its action, in reference thereto, will not be reviewed by the courts if the question is fairly debatable. It is only when the legislation is clearly arbitrary and unreasonable that a court will interfere.'

If there was a mistake in the original zoning ordinance, or if the character of the neighborhood has changed, so than an amending ordinance is otherwise permissible and proper, the fact that neighboring owners have built in reliance on the original zoning gives them no vested right which will successfully support a complaint about the amendment. Passage of a zoning ordinance is legislation, not the entering into of a contract. A property owner has no vested right to the...