Opinion ID: 2278277
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Broadview Apartments Co. is Distinguishable From the Present Case.

Text: In support of the proposition that it was improper for the Mayor and Council to decline to consider economic feasibility during the historic designation process, [37] Petitioner draws an analogy to Broadview Apartments Co. v. Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation, 49 Md.App. 538, 433 A.2d 1214 (1981). The Court of Special Appeals concluded in Broadview that Baltimore City erred in failing to consider economic feasibility before denying a demolition permit. Even though Broadview and the present case arose similarly from a demolition permit application process, we conclude that Petitioner's Broadview analogy is flawed. Under the City of Baltimore's historic zoning regulations at issue in Broadview, the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP) was created for the purposes of administering the Baltimore City Code's historic zoning provisions. Those provisions, similar to the historic zoning regulations in Rockville, were aimed at preserving area[s] in Baltimore City wherein there are located structures which have historical, cultural, educational and/or architectural value, the preservation of which is deemed to be for the educational, cultural, economic and general welfare of the inhabitants of Baltimore City. Baltimore City Code, Article 1, § 40(a). One of the CHAP's primary duties under the Code was to compile a proposed Landmark List, subject to approval by the City Council, of structures both within and outside current historic zones, Baltimore City Code, Article 1, § 40(k), which had historical, cultural, educational and/or architectural value . . . as defined by Baltimore City Code, Article 1, § 40(a). Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 540, 433 A.2d at 1215. Once a property was approved by the City Council for inclusion in the Landmark List, after notice and hearing before the Council, that property became subject to the City's historic zoning laws. Baltimore City Code, Article 1, § 40(q). Of particular consequence, the principal restriction [once the historic designation takes effect] [wa]s that a permit must be obtained from the Commissioner of Housing and Community Development [ ] before any person may alter the exterior appearance of any structure within a historic district or on the landmark list. Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 540, 433 A.2d at 1215; Baltimore City Code, Article 1, § 40(q)(1). Even though the Housing and Community Development Commission (HCD) was the governmental body that actually granted or denied a demolition permit, it was the CHAP that had ultimate authority over the permit application's fate. [38] Id. Specifically, the permit could be issued by the City, despite the historic, educational, cultural, or architectural significance of the property, if the CHAP determined that the proposed development activity was without substantial detriment to the public welfare and without substantial derogation from the intents and purposes of this ordinance, and denial of the application w[ould] result in substantial hardship to the applicant. Baltimore City Code, Article 1, § 40(q)(5)(ii). If the CHAP concluded that the alteration was inappropriate and declined to authorize issuance of the permit, then issuance was postponed for up to six months, during which time the CHAP would meet with the applicant for the permit and . . . consult with civic groups, public agencies and interested citizens to ascertain what the City may do to preserve such building. Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 541, 433 A.2d at 1215-16 (quoting Baltimore City Code, Article 1, § 40(q)(9)). In Broadview, forty-two structures, including the particular apartments at issue there, tentatively were approved on 17 December 1976 for designation on the Landmark List. Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 542, 433 A.2d at 1216. Broadview Apartments Co. applied on 10 February 1977 for a demolition permit in order to clear the land and erect a parking structure which would accommodate the adjacent commercial space the company owned and operated. Id. The CHAP notified Broadview by letter, dated 16 February 1977, that the property was going to be recommended for designation, and a formal recommendation followed two days later. Id. The Housing and Community Development Commission notified Broadview on 17 April 1977 that it was withholding the permit pending City Council review of the property. Id. The property was designated on the list officially by the City Council on 10 June 1977. It was not until two years later, and after a petition for writ of mandamus was filed to compel issuance of the permit, that the City conducted a hearing on the demolition permit application. Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 542, 542 n. 2, 433 A.2d at 1216, 1216 n. 2. Despite a multitude of reports from experts reflecting the deteriorated condition of the property, the need for extensive repair, and the inability of the owner to recoup the costs through any conceivable rent structure, the CHAP denied Broadview's demolition permit on the grounds that they were not convinced from the evidence that Broadview was under any economic hardship. Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 543, 544, 433 A.2d at 1216, 1217. With the exception of one report, which was significantly flawed according to the intermediate appellate court, all written accounts relied upon by the CHAP concerning economic feasibility stated, in a conclusory manner and without any supporting data, that renovation was feasible. Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 544, 433 A.2d at 1217. After the Baltimore City Court upheld on 15 July 1980 the CHAP's decision to deny the permit to demolish the structure, Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 544, 433 A.2d at 1217, Broadview noted an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals. In that appeal, Broadview advanced the following arguments: 1. [The] CHAP's decision denying the permit was arbitrary, capricious, and not supported by substantial evidence; 2. The preservation law does not provide objective standards for its criteria to guide [the] CHAP in its decision making and therefore is unconstitutionally vague; and 3. Denial of the demolition permit constitutes an unconstitutional taking under the 5th and 14th Amendments. Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 539, 433 A.2d at 1214. The Court of Special Appeals began its analysis by confirming that [a]lthough every restriction imposed by government upon a landowner's use of his property will not be considered a taking, where the restrictions deprive the landowner of all reasonable, beneficial uses of the property, compensation must be paid. Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 544-45, 433 A.2d at 1217 (citations omitted). According to the court, the sole evidence in the record before [the] CHAP which supported its decision was the study [which] . . . failed to include any debt service, any recovery of the purchase price, and failed to include the cost of replacing the roof, even though the City itself . . . agreed that replacement of the roof was necessary. The Court of Special Appeals concluded, as a result, that the CHAP arbitrarily ignored, in derogation of its duties under Baltimore City Code, Article 1, § 40(q), substantial evidence in the record regarding substantial hardship. The Court declined expressly to reach the landowner's second and third arguments that the preservation laws were unconstitutionally vague and that the failure to consider economic feasibility constituted a regulatory taking. Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 546, 433 A.2d at 1218. Petitioner's argument in the present case, advanced in its reply brief, that the Property herein was never listed in an Historic Resources Inventory and the Trust was never given notice that the Property was being surveyed for such designation, whereas the Broadview site had already been `tentatively' approved for inclusion on the landmark list and the owner never pressed the issue of financial hardship until two years after formal designation[,] [ Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md. App. at 542, 433 A.2d at 1216][,] undermines its attempted analogy to Broadview. The Court of Special Appeals in Broadview addressed whether the Baltimore City Court was correct in affirming the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation's denial of a demolition permit. In the present case, Petitioner's application for a demolition permit neither has been denied nor granted. [39] The HDC has not acted finally on the application. As we stated supra, the designation process that Petitioner now challenges was a precursor needing resolution before confronting necessarily the required criteria actually and finally addressed in Broadview, i.e., a final decision on the application for the demolition permit. Broadview does not stand for the proposition that the failure to consider economic hardship in the historic designation process is improper when, in that case, the feasibility of preservation was not brought to issue until some time after the historic designation process was resolved. At best, Broadview requires, in the present case, that the HDC, when it considers economic feasibility or hardship, have an adequate factual basis for its findings and conclusions in rendering a final disposition on the demolition permit application. The procedural postures of Broadview and the present case are somewhat similar in a sense. The process by which the property in Broadview became designated for historic zoning protection began with its inclusion as a proposed historic and architectural preservation district on a Landmark list under Article 1, §§ 40(j) and (k) of the Baltimore City Code. Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 542, 433 A.2d at 1216. This is akin to formal nomination for historic designation under the Rockville City Code. A nuanced view of the Court of Special Appeals's opinion in Broadview suggests a tacit judicial approval of the procedure there employed, i.e., withholding action on the permit application pending an evaluation of the historical significance of the structure. See Broadview Apartments Co., 49 Md.App. at 542, 433 A.2d at 1216. While the property in Broadview may have been a bit further along in the designation evaluation process than the Spates Bungalow when the respective demolition permit applications were filed, neither property was designated formally as historic at the time of filing the applications. Thus, the Broadview property and the Spates Bungalow were subject to normal BOCA code requirements at the time of the initial pendency of their respective permit applications. Although the Property here was not recommended formally for designation until after the permit application was filed, the record indicates that the Property was listed as a historical resource as early as 1986. Specifically, a Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties Form, created originally for the Maryland Historical Trust in 1985 by Peerless Rockville, suggests an architectural significance basis for possible designation of the Property. Although updated in 2001, after the present controversy arose, the substance of the original inventory form mirrors closely the more contemporaneous evaluations of the historic and architectural significance of the Property. Also the record refers to a study completed in 1999 by an architectural historian employed by the State Highway Administration (SHA) addressing the impact on the area of the Property by a proposed intersection improvement at Maryland Routes 28 and 355. In that study, Kelly Steele, the SHA's architectural historian, completed a Maryland Historical Trust [National Register]-Eligibility Review Form. Although the box concerning eligibility for historic designation was checked No, the textual analysis nonetheless revealed an arguable basis for eligibility. Specifically, despite Ms. Steele's assessment that the Property was not associated sufficiently with historically significant events, trends, or persons to render it eligible for designation, she submitted that it otherwise was eligible because it embodies distinctive characteristics of a type of architecture. According to Ms. Steele, the Spates Bungalow was an excellent example of the Craftsman style, and stood as a rare and outstanding representative of Craftsman architecture in Rockville, Maryland. The import of these conflicting observations suggests at least that the Property's possible historical and/or architectural significance was considered long prior to its formal nomination for designation. In that respect, the procedural trajectories of the facts in Broadview and the present case are similar enough that we conclude that the Court of Special Appeals's tacit approval of the historical designation procedure there is confirmatory of that employed here.