Dorf v. Mullendore

McWilliams, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In 1953 Dr. Dorf acquired, for $23-,000, the improved lot at the northeast corner of Liberty and Croydon Roads in suburban Baltimore County. The area was then and is now known as Milford. Within a year he bought, for $8,000, the unimproved lot adjoining his property to the east upon which he built, at a cost of about $14,000, an office in which he carried on the practice of medicine.

The house and the office were connected by a breezeway which seems to have satisfied a regulation requiring professional offices to be a part of a residence. Since 1954 the boundaries of his property have been Liberty Road (300 feet), Croydon Road (150 feet), Buckingham Road ³⁶⁹ (150 feet), and a line (300 feet) parallel to and 150 feet back from Liberty Road. In 1953, when he bought the first lot, there was on the southeast corner of Liberty Road, then 22 feet wide, and Croydon Road a “little country store” in front of which was a gasoline pump. In 1955 the Crest Shopping Center was built on vacant land on the south side of Liberty Road directly across from Dr. Dorf’s property.

All hands agree that Milford was and still is a “fine, old residential area” and that Dr. Dorf’s property is still suitable for the practice of medicine. In 1961 the Planning Board of Baltimore County recommended, for the Western Planning Area, the use of the R.A. (Residential Apartment) zone as a buffer strip “between commercial and cottage residential land uses.” It went on to say that the R.A. zone should “be placed on unsubdivided land or land improved with dwellings, either across the street from existing commercial development (facing commercial) or adjacent thereto (siding on commercial).” In the supplement to its report the R.A. classification was recommended for Dr. Dorf’s property. On 11 July 1961 the county council held a hearing on the proposed zoning map for the Western Planning Area.

Counsel for Dr. Dorf appeared and opposed the R.A. classification, urging a reclassification to B.L. (Business Local) and stressing the fact that “the property faces directly onto a Sinclair Station * * * [adjacent to which] is an A & P, a drugstore and a small shopping center.” Reference was made, also, to the fact that the Beltway interchange was “within a block or so” and that Liberty Road “according to the State Roads Commission has a car capacity of about 21,500 vehicles over a 24-hour period,” and that it is “heavily travelled.” The right-of-way, at the time, was 66 feet wide. Later on 60 of the 66 feet were paved. Apparently the request for a B.L. classification was dimly viewed.

On 3 October 1961, the county council, by a unanimous vote rejected the proposed R.A. zoning and classified the property R.10 (Residential-One Family). The comprehensive ³⁷⁰ zoning map was adopted by the county council on 15 November 1962. Three months later, in February 1963, Br. Borf sought to have his property changed from the R.10 classification to the B.L. classification, for a small shopping center, on the single ground of error in the comprehensive rezoning of November 1962.

Upon the denial of his request by the Zoning Commissioner he appealed to the Board of Appeals which