Case Name: MACK v. CRANDELL, et al.
Court: Court of Appeals of Maryland
Jurisdiction: Maryland
Decision Date: 1966-10-19
Citations: 244 Md. 193
Docket Number: No. 414
Parties: MACK v. CRANDELL, et al.
Judges: 
Reporter: Maryland Reports
Volume: 244
Pages: 193–206

Head Matter:
MACK v. CRANDELL, et al.
[No. 414,
September Term, 1965.]
Decided October 19, 1966.
The cause was argued before Hammond, C. J., and HornEy, OppEnheimer, Barnes and McWieriams, JJ.
J. Francis Ford, with whom was Joseph H. A. Rogan on the brief, for appellant.
Marvin I. Singer, with whom was John H. Hessey, IV on the brief, for appellees.

Opinion:
OppEnheimer, J.,
delivered the opinion of the Court. Barnes, J., dissents. Dissenting opinion at page 200, infra.
The width of a pen-stroke in the preparation of a comprehensive zoning map by the Baltimore County Council in 1959 resulted in an admitted error in the zoning of the appellant's property. Prior to the adoption of the map for the Thirteenth District, the property had been zoned for residential use, one or two-family houses (the present R-6 zoning classification). At the time of the hearings on the adoption of the comprehensive map, the appellant, Miss Mack, sought commercial zoning (B-F, business local) for her property, which consists of about an acre and a half fronting some 209 feet on Maiden Choice Fane, in the Arbutus area. The Planning Staff, the Planning Board and the County Council considered her request as a specific issue. The Board recommended R-A zoning (residential apartments, gross density 18 units per acre, net density 16 units per acre) to serve as a buffer or transition zone between the B-F zoning to the west and the R-6 zoning to the east. The Council adopted this recommendation. However, because the District Zoning Map was based on maps at a scale of 1000 feet to the inch, it was difficult to draw zoning delineations that were precisely accurate, and, in drawing the map, the width of the pen-stroke resulted in deviations between the boundaries of the Mack lot and the R-A zoning area intended by the Coun cil to be applicable to that lot. Approximately 85% of the Mack lot was zoned R-A, as the Council intended, but, because of the drafting error, 12 feet of the frontage of the property were zoned B-L and 20 feet on the other side of the lot were zoned R-6. The zoning of the two strips was an unintentional overlap of contiguous areas so zoned.
In 1961, the appellant again sought to obtain B-L classification of her property. Her application was denied by the Zoning Commissioner and no appeal was taken. Miss Mack has never, since the 1959 zoning, attempted to have the 12 and 20 foot strips of her property zoned R-A, as most of her lot is zoned.
In 1963, the appellant filed an application for a reclassification of all of her property to B-L, with a special exception for a gasoline service station. The Zoning Commissioner of Baltimore County denied the reclassification and the special exception. The County Board of Appeals reversed the decision of the Zoning Commissioner and granted the rezoning classification and special exception. The Board found that there was obviously an error in the original zoning and that there had been many subsequent changes in the neighborhood. On appeal to the Circuit Court of Baltimore County, Judge Menchine, in an incisive and well considered opinion, reversed the Board's order •and denied the requested reclassification and special exception.
Judge Menchine found that there was no. evidence to support the Board's statement that there had been changes in the neighborhood. Counsel for the appellant conceded at the hearing below, and in the argument before us, that the Board's finding was not supported in the record. We agree. The sole issue, therefore, is the effect of the admitted original mistake.
At the time of the 1959 zoning, the Mack property was used as a single family residence and was bounded on the north and east by R-6 zoning; the area so zoned was improved by single family homes. The property immediately adjacent to the west was zoned B-L and was improved by a building and loan association office building. Also to the west, on the opposite side •of Maiden Choice Lane, not immediately in front of the Mack lot, were a gasoline station and, further west, a shopping center. To the south, there was a residential neighborhood with an elementary school three blocks away. There has been no change in these conditions since the 1959 zoning. The residential property next door to the Mack property has recently been sold as a residence and a new home has been built on Maiden Choice Eane close to the Mack lot.
There is no claim that under the present zoning the appellant has been deprived of all beneficial use of her property. Miss Mack has lived in her house as a single family residence for over 40 years. She has tried to sell her land for residential or commercial use but not for apartments. She does not wish to build apartments because of her age and lack of capital resources. The uncontradicted testimony is that there is no physical reason which would prevent the development of at least so much of the tract as is zoned R-A and B-L for apartment use and that the lot has a substantial value for that use.
The appellant contends that, because of the admitted error in the zoning of the two strips of the property as B-E and R-6, the Board acted within its authority in reclassifying all the tract as B-E. But, as Judge Menchine points out in his opinion, an error of this particular nature in the original zoning does not, of itself, justify a commercial reclassification. The appellant did not request a correction of the error by a reclassification of the two strips to R-A, as most of the tract is zoned and as the Council obviously intended all of it should be zoned, but seeks to make the technical mistake the basis for rezoning all of the tract to a use which the Council, in its comprehensive zoning, had, after consideration, rejected. The Board's action is an attempted piecemeal rezoning of a comprehensive zoning map, not to correct an error, but to rezone the property for a use inconsistent with the original comprehensive zoning. The proposed use would be in conflict with the original zoning, even had that zoning properly reflected in its drafting the clear legislative intent.
On the undisputed facts, the Board's action in granting a reclassification of a tract of property and a special exception in conflict with the comprehensive zoning, even if that zoning be regarded from the point of view of what the Council intended instead of in the light of the lines the map contained, was arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable. There being no evidence of a change in conditions, that issue was not fairly debatable. The uncontradicted evidence as to the mistake in the original zoning might well have supported an order to correct that mistake, if application to that effect had been made, by zoning the entire tract R-A, as the Council intended. But the rule that a piecemeal change from the original zoning can be sustained on strong evidence of an original mistake was never intended, and has not been applied, to uphold a reclassification for a use which the original zoning had never envisaged.
The cases in which this Court has sustained an administrative order correcting a mistake clearly shown in the original zoning have been limited to the rectification of the mistake. In Overton v. Board of County Comm'rs, 225 Md. 212, 170 A. 2d 172 (1961), the correction sustained was a reclassification from Rural-Residential to Multiple Family, Row-Density Residential. At the hearing before the original comprehensive zoning, the property owner had requested, and had been denied, commercial zoning for a shopping center. There was strong evidence, however, of an original mistake in failure to consider the type of residential development which should have been recommended for the property. The owner's subsequent request for reclassification was addressed to the correction of that original error; the reclassification was for a more restricted use than that originally rejected. The Court said, at 225 Md. 219: "The Council may have determined that the reclassification would be more in harmony with the comprehensive zoning plan than the original classification." Here, the reclassification granted by the Board was in conflict with the undisputed legislative intent that the property be zoned for residential apartments, to serve as a buffer or transition zone. In Rohde v. County Bd. of Appeals, 234 Md. 259, 199 A. 2d 216 (1964), the Board's order upheld by the Circuit Court for Baltimore County and by this Court reclassified the tract involved from R-6, Two-Family Residence, to R-A, Residence Apartment, with a special exception for two high-rise apartment buildings. The Court found there was strong evidence of a mistake in the original zoning in not anticipating the trend towards apartments in the area. In Dill v. Jobar Corp., 242 Md. 16, 217 A. 2d 564 (1966), we held that there was a sound basis for the determination of original error made by the Zoning Board and affirmed by the Circuit Court in not zoning the tract involved for Manufacturing-Restricted. The property was reclassified as Business Local, which, as in Overton, was a more restricted use than that originally rejected in error. In Jobar, Judge Hammond (now Chief Judge) said for the Court, at 242 Md. 23:
"Even though the existing zoning does not result in confiscation and thus require rezoning, original error may permit the agency to which the controlling legislative body has entrusted individual rezoning properly to change a classification, Overton v. Co. Commissioners, 225 Md. 212, if it does so on evidence before it which is substantial enough to permit reasoning minds reasonably to conclude that the strong presumption of the correctness of the original zoning or comprehensive rezoning has been overcome. Miller v. Abrahams, 239 Md. 263; Pahl v. County Bd. of Appeals, 237 Md. 294, 297; Shadynook Imp. Assn. v. Molloy, 232 Md. 265, 269-70, and cases cited." (Emphasis on "properly" added).
The New York cases cited by the appellant, Buffalo Park Lane, Inc. v. City of Buffalo, 162 Misc. 207, 294 N. Y. Supp. 413 (Sup. Ct. 1937), and Hecht-Dann Const. Co. v. Burden, 124 Misc. 632, 208 N. Y. Supp. 299 (Sup. Ct. 1924), involve different factual situations and do not involve the application of the original mistake doctrine. We do not regard them as apposite.
The appellant's contention that the use of the Mack property as a buffer zone was an error in the original zoning is without merit. Baker v. Montgomery County, 241 Md. 178, 185-86, 215 A. 2d 831 (1966); Levy v. Seven Slade, Inc., 234 Md. 145, 154, 198 A. 2d 267 (1964); Rohde, supra, at 234 Md. 268.
Our holding in this case does not attenuate the firmly established principle that administrative orders in zoning matters, in general, are not to be reversed unless they are arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable. Nor does our holding disturb the rule that, while there is a strong presumption of the correctness of original zoning or rezoning, reclassifications may be upheld if there is strong evidence of original mistake or substantial change of conditions and the issue is fairly debatable. We affirm the Circuit Court in reversing the Board because, on the undisputed facts, the Board's action was arbitrary and unreasonable.
Judgment affirmed; costs to be paid by the appellant.