Brouillett v. Eudowood Shopping Plaza Inc.

Marbury, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This case concerns a petition for a special exception filed by the appellees, Eudowood Shopping Plaza, Inc. (as legal owner) and the J. C. Corporation (as lessee contingent on zoning), to the zoning commissioner of Baltimore County. The petition requested a special exception to allow the erection and operation of a self-service car wash on a part of what is now the parking lot of the Eudowood Shopping Plaza. The deputy zoning commissioner had originally granted the special exception but the County Board of Appeals denied the appellees’ request, finding that it would “be detrimental to the health, safety, and general welfare of the locality involved.” An appeal was taken to the Circuit Court for Baltimore County where Judge Barrett reversed the Board, holding that its decision “was not based on substantial evidence.” All of the appellants appeared as protestants before the Board and had answered and argued the appeal to the Circuit Court.

All are residents of the immediate neighborhood and a subdivision known as Fellowship Forest. The proposed car wash is described as a building 30 feet wide, 171 feet 10 inches long and 24 feet high, to be built of cinder block with steel sidings and roof. The proposed building would be fully enclosed and the actual washing will be in ten bays which could be entered from the parking area in front of the building, which is of sufficient size to hold forty automobiles. The building was to be situated on a 120 feet by 200 feet area near the southwest corner of the shopping center parking lot, at the intersection of Putty Hill Road and Goucher Boulevard, in the Towson area of Baltimore County.

Immediately adjacent to the shopping center are: a tract to the north and west being developed for apartments; a tract south of Putty Hill Road and west of Goucher Boulevard known as the Fellowship Forest Apartments; Calvert Hall High School to the south; to the east ⁶⁰⁸ are dwellings zoned as group houses and to the north of that is a parking lot, zoned industrial. The shopping center property is now zoned Business-Local and was given this classification on the comprehensive zoning map of 1955. Under this classification a car wash is a permitted use only if it is authorized by the granting of a special exception. The proposed business would be operated on a twenty-four hour, seven day a week basis and would be unattended from 5 :30 p.m. until 9:00 a.m.

At the hearing before the Board there was testimony from Ira James Alligood, a witness for the appellees, who owned three similar businesses in York, Pennsylvania, that such an operation would not be feasible unless carried out on the above basis. He also testified that ten to fifteen per cent of the business was done between 10:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. while the operation was unattended. He further testified that “Sunday morning, from 8:00 a.m. to noon, it is full if the weather is clear * * *. So that is one of the maximum periods.” The real party in interest is the J. C. Corporation which had, at the time of the hearing, negotiated a lease for the subject property with the Eudowood Shopping Plaza, Inc., the lease to be contingent on obtaining the special exception.

Tire J. C. Corporation was organized for the specific purpose of operating the proposed car wash and fifty per cent of its capital stock is owned by Mr. Chris William George, who operated a car rental agency and who has no experience with a car wash operation. One of the questions presented to us is whether the Board’s decision was based on substantial evidence produced before it. We believe that it was and that the evidence presented for the Board’s determination a question which was fairly debatable. Consequently, the Circuit Court was in error and should have permitted the decision of the Board to stand.

The zoning authority is presumed to possess the expertise necessary for deciding the matters brought before it and if its decision is based on substantial evidence then the courts may not substitute their judgment for that of the zoning authority. As we stated in Crowther, Inc. v. Johnson, 225 Md. 379, 383 , 170 A. 2d 768 : “* * *, conditions upon which a special exception may be granted are set out in the ordinance, and the board ⁶⁰⁹ is given a wide latitude of discretion in passing upon special exceptions so long as the resulting use is in harmony with the general purpose and intent of the zoning plan and will not adversely affect the use of neighboring properties and the general plan of the