Opinion ID: 2297312
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Master Plan Conflict

Text: HNS maintains that the Board of Appeals erred in denying the proposed amended development plan on the basis of the Planning Board's finding that approval of the plan would conflict with the Master Plan. B.C.C. § 22-38 states that [c]ompliance with the development regulations hereinafter set forth shall be deemed the fulfillment of the development policies set forth in section 22-37 and purposes set forth in section 22-38. Therefore, HNS reasons that because the amended development plan met the physical, special, and other development regulations, this achievement alone equated to conformance with all of the development regulations, including the Master Plan. HNS reasons further that the CRG approval process does not require proof of discrete conformance with the Master Plan and that decades of CRG practice demonstrates that compliance with the development regulations alone has been deemed sufficient to merit approval. On the other hand, Respondents maintain that Master Plan compliance is a discrete requirement of development plan review. Although the Master Plan textual recommendations are framed as advisory, rather than mandatory, non-conformance with those recommendations remains a proper basis for denying HNS's amended development plan. We begin our analysis with a brief overview of the role of the Master Plan in Baltimore County. The Baltimore County Master Plan sets forth comprehensive objectives, policies, and standards to serve as a guide for the development of the county. Baltimore County Charter, § 523. The Office of Planning prepares a proposed Master Plan (and amendments), which the County Council must accept or modify, and then adopts it by resolution. Id. The Master Plan objectives and policies are incorporated into the development purposes and policies set forth in B.C.C. §§ 22-37 (Development Policies) and 22-38 (Development Purposes). B.C.C. § 22-37 states that [a]ll development of land must conform to the master plan and these regulations. A stated purpose of the development regulations is [t]o implement the future growth and development of Baltimore County in accordance with the master plan. B.C.C. § 22-38(b). As noted by HNS, B.C.C. § 22-38 provides that [c]ompliance with the development regulations hereinafter set forth shall be deemed the fulfillment of the development policies set forth in section 22-37 and the purposes set forth in section 22-38. The development regulations are set forth in B.C.C. § 22-37 through § 22-119. B.C.C. § 22-40(b). Compliance with the Master Plan is considered a part of the development plan review and approval process. B.C.C. § 22-54(b). At the time of the review and approval of Phase II of the Longfield Estates subdivision in 1991, development plan review was conducted under a prior iteration of the CRG process, which is no longer in existence. [12] In 2005, when HNS filed its amended development plan, the County Code provided that proposed amendments to approved development plans be reviewed in the same manner as the original plan. [13] Prior to a development plan being filed, the Office of Planning and the DPW hold a pre-development conference to provide the applicant with information about policies, standards, or legislation that may affect the subject property. B.C.C. § 22-54. After the pre-development conference, which may be waived by the applicant, the proposed development plan is submitted to the DPW. If the proposed plan provides the necessary information described in B.C.C. § 22-55, the DPW forwards the plan to the CRG within 15 days of receipt of the plan. B.C.C. § 22-56(a). The DPW is to schedule a meeting of the CRG no earlier than 15 days, but no later than 30 days, after the plan is accepted for filing. B.C.C. § 22-56(b). If a county agency (including the DPW) fails to act within its statutory time frame, the plan is deemed approved, unless an administrative officer provides an excuse in writing within seven days of the time lapsing. B.C.C. § 22-47. When the CRG meets, if it appears that the proposal conflicts with the Master Plan, the development plan must be referred to the Planning Board. B.C.C. § 22-59(a)(1). After its review of the potential Master Plan conflict, the Planning Board files concurrently a written decision with the CRG and the Baltimore County Council. B.C.C. § 22-60(b)(1). Unless the County Council overrules the Planning Board's determination regarding the Master Plan conflict, the Planning Board's decision is binding upon the CRG and must be incorporated into the CRG's final action on a proposed plan. B.C.C. § 22-60(c). Any person aggrieved or feeling aggrieved by final action on a plan may appeal to the Board of Appeals within 30 days of the date of the final action by the CRG. B.C.C. § 22-61(a). On review by the Board of Appeals, [t]he final action on a plan shall be presumed correct and the person aggrieved shall have the burden of persuasion to show that such action was arbitrary or capricious, procured by fraud, or otherwise illegal. B.C.C. § 22-61(d). HNS's view that its amended development plan met the development regulations and, therefore, must be deemed in compliance with the ordinance and the Master Plan is an illogical conclusion that imagines a unique conception of development regulations not contemplated by the Code. The development regulations are composed of all of the policies, definitions, procedures, and rules found in B.C.C. § 22-37 through 22-119. These sections of the code incorporate the Master Plan in multiple locations by stating that: land must conform to the master plan and these regulations (B.C.C. § 22-37(a) (emphasis added)); growth must be implemented in accordance with the master plan (B.C.C. § 22-38(a)); pre-development conferences must address potential Master Plan intent and conflicts; (B.C.C. § 22-54(b)); the CRG must refer Master Plan conflicts to the Planning Board (B.C.C. § 22-59(a)(1)); and the Planning Board must dispose of the Master Plan conflict by a certain procedure (B.C.C. § 22-60(b)(1) & (c)). HNS's narrow reading of B.C.C. § 22-38 ignores the integrated role of the Master Plan in the overall land development regulatory scheme. We do not see how, once the Planning Board's decision (that the proposal reflected in the amended development plan was in conflict with the Master Plan) became binding on the CRG review and approval process, the development could still be in compliance with the development regulations. The amended development plan could not be in compliance with the development regulations without conforming to the Master Plan. In our view, the language of B.C.C. § 22-38, which states that [c]ompliance with the development regulations hereinafter set forth shall be deemed the fulfilment of the development policies in section 22-37 and purposes set forth in section 22-38, is clear and unambiguous. A development plan must adhere to all of the development regulations and procedures, from B.C.C. § 22-37 through B.C.C. 22-119, in order to meet the broad goals set forth in B.C.C. § 22-37, which includes regulations addressing the Master Plan goals. In this statutory context, conformance to the recommendations of the Master Plan rises to the level of a regulatory device, rather than a mere recommendation. A conflict with the Master Plan obliges the CRG to defer to the Planning Board, whose decision must be incorporated in the CRG's final action on the development plan. When the Planning Board concluded there was a conflict with the Master Plan and recommended denial of the amended development plan, there was no possible way for the amended development plan proposal to be deemed in compliance with the development regulations, its adherence to other requirements in the regulations notwithstanding. HNS concedes that the Master Plan and development regulations have a close nexus and that the development regulations contain strategies to achieve the goals of the Master Plan. Those strategies for compliance include the Planning Board process for determining potential Master Plan conflicts. As HNS points out, the textual recommendations of the Master Plan and community plans are rarely site-specific in their language, so the seemingly broad resolution provisions for determining conflicts are necessary to allow the technically competent county personnel to interpret the Master Plan on a site-by-site basis as development proposals are tendered. HNS failed to explain a cogent reason for why the Board of Appeals's decision to reject an amended development plan, that conflicted admittedly with the Master Plan, was improper in light of clear statutory language that development of land must conform to the master plan. The Baltimore County Code provides a process where the County Council, as part of the development review process, may place in reservation, for up to 18 months, a portion or all of the land involved in a development submission, thus delaying development while the County determines if it should acquire the property. Sycamore Realty Co. v. People's Counsel for Balt. Cnty., 344 Md. 57, 59, 684 A.2d 1331, 1332 (1996). The County Council may acquire through negotiation or condemnation the reserved property for public interest purposes, including open space, environmental preservation, playgrounds, or parks. Id.; see also B.C.C. § 32-2-301(a) (2003). B.C.C. § 22-18, titled Effects of proposals in master plan on applications for building permits or for approval of preliminary subdivision plans, provides the procedure whereby the Planning Board, or another agency, determines whether . . . it believes that it would be in the public interest to reserve any portion or all of the land. If the Planning Board concludes that the County should reserve all or part of the land, it must send a report and recommendation to the County Council. B.C.C. § 22-18. The County Council has 30 days to pass a resolution declaring the reservation and describing the land to be reserved. B.C.C. § 22-18. If the County Council does not resolve to reserve all or part of the property, the inquiry ends as to whether a reservation is in the public interest, and the property may not be considered again for reservation by the local government for a period of two years. B.C.C. § 22-18. HNS reasons that, because there is no provision in B.C.C. § 22-18 for what happens when (as happened here) the Planning Board, in identifying a Master Plan conflict, recommends nonetheless that the County Council not reserve or purchase the subject property, the conclusion that a Master Plan conflict exists has no efficacy. This ignores plainly the import in the development regulations of a Master Plan conflict. When the Planning Board concludes that it is not in the public interest to acquire a property, and the County Council does not override this position, the Planning Board's conclusion that the amended development plan is in conflict with the Master Plan remains and is binding on the final action taken by the CRG. Nothing in B.C.C. § 22-18 negates B.C.C. § 22-60(c); it provides a procedure for determining whether the County should attempt to acquire the property. Here the County Council did not act to overrule the Planning Board's conclusion that the amended development plan conflicted with the 1998-2000 and 2010 Master Plans; therefore, B.C.C. § 22-60(c) mandates that that decision become part of the final CRG action. Regardless of whether the Board of Appeals erred by retaining jurisdiction over the case (as all parties contend), rather than remanding it back to the CRG (instead of the Planning Board), the end game is the same, in our view. The county agency tasked with determining whether a Master Plan conflict existed made its decision. This decision was not arbitrary or capricious, based as it was on analysis of the prevailing Master Plan at the time of the original development approval of Phase II of the Longfield Estates development in 1991, Note 18 appended to that plan, and the Master Plan in effect when the proposed amended development plan for Lot 42 and Parcel A was considered. HNS does not assert here that the Planning Board concluded improperly that there was a Master Plan conflict. HNS strains to make something of the distinction between Master Plan conflict versus conformance. It states that the conflict provisions in the development regulations are in place only as a trigger to allow the County time to acquire properties, found to be in conflict with the Master Plan and desirable for public acquisition, through eminent domain or negotiation. In our view, whether a property, empressed with a reservation, is acquired by the County is a wholly separate process and purpose of the B.C.C., discussed supra. Equally significant, if not of greater importance, the development regulations determine how the County is to be developed over time and place restrictions on developments and subdivisions in order to achieve the long term goals of the Master Plan. Whether conforming development is in the best interest of the County and the public is a separate matter from acquisition of desirable public property. As pointed out by HNS, nine parcels in the original Phase II Longfield Estates development plan were found to be in conflict with the Master Plan initially, but were not acquired by the County, presumably because to do so would not benefit the public. Moreover, the developer modified its development proposal for these lots so as to ameliorate the conflict and induce the County not to reserve the lots. Acquisition of a property is not the only mechanism for the County to protect its Master Plan goals. Reasonable restrictions on development, including limiting lot sizes, house siting, and numbers of lots, are implemented regularly and are not challenged here by HNS. These restrictions were implemented in the initial Phase II Longfield Estates development plan, approved by the CRG, in order to bring the development into conformance with the Master Plan. The Planning Board is maintaining presently a position it took originally in 1991 with regard to Lot 42 and Parcel A in order to protect the Master Plan-recommended viewshed of a historic property. We agree with the Court of Special Appeals's reasoning that when the development regulations incorporate Master Plan compliance the Master Plan itself becomes a regulatory device, rather than a mere guide and recommendation. HNS, 200 Md.App. at 34, 24 A.3d at 188. In Rylyns, we concluded that a municipality's imposition, at the insistence of Montgomery County, of a more restrictive zoning classification on a parcel of newly annexed land than provided by the city's zoning law was impermissible. 372 Md. at 521, 814 A.2d at 479. We explained in Rylyns that master plans, which are the result of work done by planning commissions and adopted by ultimate zoning bodies, are advisory in nature and have no force of law absent statutes or local ordinances linking planning and zoning. Where the latter exists, however, they serve to elevate the status of comprehensive plans to the level of true regulatory devices. 372 Md. at 530, 814 A.2d at 478. In Coffey v. Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission, 293 Md. 24, 25, 441 A.2d 1041, 1041 (1982), the Prince George's County Planning Board rejected a proposed subdivision plan because it did not conform to the Master Plan, and we concluded that when subdivision regulations require that a proposed subdivision comply with the master plan, an application for approval of a preliminary subdivision plan that fails to so comply must be rejected. In Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Commission v. Greater Baden-Aquasco Citizens Association, 412 Md. 73, 102, 985 A.2d 1160, 1177 (2009), we held that the provisions of a Master Plan were mandatory where Prince George's County subdivision regulations required that subdivision plat[s] shall conform to the area master plan, including maps and text, unless the Planning Board finds that events have occurred to render the relevant plan recommendations no longer appropriate. We find no principled distinction between these cases and the present one.