Bloede v. MacNabb

Horney, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal by the protestants (Carl S. Bloede and others) in a zoning case from the order of the Circuit Court for Baltimore County affirming the order of the board of appeals granting the petitioner (Edward S. MacNabb, Jr.) a use permit for commercial funeral home parking in a residential area. The petitioner owns and has operated as a nonconforming use for approximately thirty years a funeral home located on the southwest corner of Wade Avenue and Frederick Road in the Catonsville area. He also owns the lot, which is the subject of this controversy, having acquired it by deed from the State Roads Commission which had acquired it by condemnation in the course of constructing the Baltimore Beltway.

The lot, which lies in a northerly direction from the funeral home, across, but not immediately adjacent to, Frederick Road, is located in a residential area on the east side of a private road known as Arbutus Avenue. The lot is bounded on the east and south by the right-of-way of the State Roads Commission used as an exit from the Beltway into Frederick Road. Between the lot and the paved portion of the Beltway exit there is a turf-covered shoulder or slope, eighteen feet in width at its narrowest point, extending along the right-of-way to Arbutus Avenue. At present the whole lot is unimproved and is covered with trees and undergrowth which serve to shield the properties of the protestants from the commercial areas along Frederick Road.

It is conceded that the lot cannot be used for residential purposes. ⁴⁵⁴ The trees and undergrowth on the southerly end of the lot are to remain, but that part of the lot proposed to be used as a parking facility will, if granted, accommodate