Beauchamp v. Somerset County Sanitary Commission

HornEy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The sole question presented by this appeal is whether the Somerset County Sanitary Commission (commission) abused its discretion in classifying certain property owned by the Oliver T. Beauchamp, Jr., Post No. 94 of the American Legion ¹⁰⁰ Department of Maryland (post) as “small acreage” for the purpose of assessing benefits in connection with the laying of a water main and sewer in the bed of Antioch Avenue, a Princess Anne street, lying within the sanitary district administered by the commission. When the water and sewerage system was constructed in 1962,'the property in question, a 9.86 acre tract of land with one side binding on Antioch Avenue for a distance of 1580 feet, was owned by the Princess Anne Civic Association (association) and was intended to be used as a site for commercial enterprises. The commission classified the abutting portion of the tract as “small acreage” and levied an annual assessment for the year 1963 of $1169.20, based on a rate of $0.74 per front foot.

The association, contending that the proper classification was “agricultural” which would have exempted the property from assessment, protested the classification as “small acreage,” but the protest was disallowed and the association paid the assessment for 1963. The post, having purchased the subject property from the association on December 30, 1963 (in order to protect a larger tract of agricultural property it owned on the opposite side of Maryland Route 388, known as West Post Office Road, on which the property in question also binds), likewise objected to the “small acreage” classification of the 9.86 acre tract. The commission, however, again rejected the claim that the property should be classified as “agricultural” and reaffirmed its original classification. The post has not paid the annual assessments for 1964 and 1965.

In November of 1965, when the parties agreed to submit the question to the circuit court for a declaratory judgment as to what the classification should be, the court affirmed the action of the commission in classifying the property in question as “small acreage” instead of “agricultural” and the post appealed. On appeal, the post, contending that the refusal of the commission to classify the property as agricultural was erroneous, arbitrary and an abuse of discretion, argues that the property is being actively farmed and that it has been under cultivation every year, except one, for the last several years. Code (1957), Article 43, § 657, under which the commission ¹⁰¹ acted in making the classification and levying the annual assessment, provides in pertinent part: “For the purpose of paying the interest and principal of the bonds issued in the name of a [sanitary] district by any * * * commission * * * for the water or sewerage systems to be constructed * * * the * * * commission is hereby empowered to establish a proper and reasonable charge * * * and to fix an annual assessment * * * on all properties, improved or unimproved, binding upon a street * * * in which a water main or sewer has been built. The said annual assessment shall be made upon the front-foot basis * * *.

The * * * commission for the purpose of assessing benefits shall divide all properties binding upon a street * * * in which a water pipe or sanitary sewer is to be laid, into four classes, namely: [agricultural, small acreage, industrial or business, and subdivision property, and the commission may subdivide each of [the] classes in such manner as it may deem to be in the public interest. * * *. The classification of and the benefit assessed against any property as made by the commission shall be final, subject only to revision at [a] hearing. The commission may change the classification [of] property from time to time as said properties change in the uses to which they are put. Said benefits shall be levied for both water supply and sewerage construction and shall be based for each class of property upon the number of front feet abutting upon the street * * *; provided * * * that no land so classified as agricultural * * * shall be assessed a front-foot benefit when said agricultural land has constructed * * * in front of it a sewer or water main, until such time as the water or sewer connection is made, * * *.

Front-foot benefit charges for water supply and sewerage construction shall be as nearly uniform as is reasonable and practical for each class or subclass of property throughout each sanitary district for any one year * * 1 ¹⁰² As is apparent, the purpose of the statute was to impose a special assessement on all