Opinion ID: 2068552
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ordinance 04-855

Text: While the litigation over Ordinance 04-659 was spiraling on, the City Council got busy amending the Zoning Code to clarify whether a conditional use ordinance should be required for accessory parking lots in the Parking Lot Districts. On 20 October 2004, Bill 03-1219 was introduced in the City Council. The Bill was titled Zoning-Parking Lot Districts-Clarification. Bill 03-1219 proposed to amend the definition of parking lot in § 10-501 of the Zoning Code by adding non-accessory to the statutory definition. Thus, under the amendment proposed in the Bill, it would no longer be necessary to enact a parking lot ordinance under § 10-504(a) to approve the construction of off-street accessory parking in the Parking Lot Districts [15] in order to comply with § 10-201 [16] of the Zoning Code. Also on 20 October 2004, the Land Use and Planning Committee of the City Council held a hearing at which Bill 03-1219 was discussed. At that hearing, Douglas M. Armstrong (Armstrong), the lead Petitioner in this case and other cases related to the overall controversy at the heart of this case, presented the Committee with a portion of the legislative history of the Zoning Code, which indicated that, as part of a comprehensive recodification process in 1970, the City Council declined adopting an amendment similar to the one proposed in Bill 03-1219. [17] On 15 November 2004, the City Council held a work session on the Bill, and on 29 November 2004, approved the Bill. The Bill became law as Ordinance 04-855, effective 1 January 2005. On 30 December 2004, Armstrong filed a complaint in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City seeking a declaratory judgment that Ordinance 04-855 was invalid and an injunction prohibiting the City from permitting construction of parking lots pursuant to the terms of the Ordinance. The Circuit Court, on 31 October 2005, entered an order dismissing Armstrong's request for an injunction and declaring that Ordinance 04-855 was not invalid. Armstrong pursued a timely appeal of the Circuit Court's judgment to the Court of Special Appeals. He urged that the Circuit Court erred: (1) in ruling that Ordinance 04-855 was not invalid because the Ordinance violated the one subject rule contained in Article III, section 14(b) of the Baltimore City Charter; [18] (2) in failing to conduct an evidentiary hearing and granting the City's motion to dismiss; and, (3) in failing to enter a proper declaratory judgment. The Court of Special Appeals affirmed. The intermediate appellate court concluded that Armstrong was not entitled to an evidentiary hearing because the question of the Bill's titling and its compliance with section 14(b) of the City Charter is a question of law. Moreover, the titling of Bill 03-1219 complied with section 14(b) because the title was not misleading and sufficiently apprised the public, including Armstrong, of the purpose and contents of the Bill. Thus, the Court of Special Appeals concluded that Ordinance 04-855 was not invalid. Armstrong v. Mayor of Balt ., No. 02210, September Term 2005, 171 Md.App. 738 (filed 5 Oct. 2006). We denied Armstrong's Petition for Writ of Certiorari on 12 January 2007. Armstrong v. Baltimore, 396 Md. 524, 914 A.2d 768 (2007).