Lapidus v. Mayor of Baltimore

²⁶¹ Prescott, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. When the Baltimore City Court affirmed a decision of the Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals (Board), which denied the appellant’s application to continue the housing of four families in property known as 227 S. Sharp Street in Baltimore City, the appellant appealed. The question involved is a narrow one, and not difficult of solution. It is simply whether the action of the Board in denying the application was arbitrary and capricious, and the answer depends solely upon whether the property was utilized to house four families on March 30, 1931, (the original date of the Baltimore City Zoning Ordinance) ; because admittedly the housing of four families in this property is a violation of the present zoning law unless a nonconforming use in 1931 was established by the petitioner.

He purchased the property in 1936. His son testified at the hearing before the Board that his father had owned the property continuously since its purchase, and there were four apartments upstairs ever since the date of purchase in 1936. The only other evidence offered by the petitioner was the testimony of one Willie Wilson, who stated that he lived within a block of the property for thirty years; that he was familiar with the property in 1928 and he knew, by talking to the people, that four families lived in the property at that time. However, he admitted that he was never in the building (until just before the hearing), and he made no attempt to describe its occupancy specifically as of 1931.

Nothing further was offered by the petitioner as to the density of occupancy between 1928 and 1936. At the hearing before the Board, there was a letter from the Zoning Enforcement Officer that stated, inter alia, that an application had been filed with “this bureau” in 1952, signed illegibly, which stated the property was used for two families and a vacant store. Also before the Board was the Police Survey of 1931, which the appellant concedes was proper to be considered by it. According to this Survey, the property in question consisted of two and not four dwelling units on the crucial date.

The Board, in its resolution that denied the application, re ²⁶² ferred to