Schiff v. Board of Zoning Appeals

Henderson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This appeal challenges the validity of an order of the Board of Zoning Appeals of Baltimore County, upheld by the court below, reclassifying a tract of land' on the south side of Smith Avenue from “A” Residence tó “E” Commercial, in order to permit the construction of a shopping center. The reclassification covered an- area of about twenty-five acres, including the ground on ³⁶⁷ which stand two large airplane hangars and about three acres surrounding them, with a special parking permit on about twenty-two acres, to accommodate some 3,500 cars. We made some allusion to the case in Zinn v. Board of Zoning Appeals of Baltimore County, 207 Md. 355 , just decided.

Much of the argument in the instant case revolved on the claim of a nonconforming use. The airport was in existence when the Zoning Ordinance was adopted in 1945, but it is conceded that such use was permanently discontinued in 1947. The property was purchased by the appellee, Greenspring Manor, Inc., in 1950. Bendix Radio Corporation has occupied the buildings from time to time since 1951, and has a year to year lease at this time.

It uses the buildings as a school for some of its secret radar projects for the Federal Government. We think it is clear that the only use antedating the adoption of the Ordinance was abandoned. Section XI of the Baltimore County Zoning Regulations provides that upon “any attempt to change from such non-conforming use to a different non-conforming use or any discontinuance of such non-conforming use for a period of one year, the right to continue to resume such non-conforming use shall terminate * * *.” Cf. Daniels v. Board of Zoning Appeals, 205 Md. 36, 39 .

Landay v. Zoning Appeals Board, 173 Md. 460 , turned upon a wholly different provision of the Baltimore City Ordinance. It is conceded that the property was originally placed in an “A” Residence district, and that the only change in the neighborhood has been the erection of a number of additional residences, some costing as much as $30,000. Mr. Miles, a witness for the applicant, admitted that the nonconforming use had been abandoned, but testified he thought it was a mistake to have classified the airport as residential in the beginning, because the buildings could not be converted to a residential use. But we are not prepared to hold that the impossibility of converting specialized structures of this sort to residence use would render untenable the classification, of the ³⁶⁸ tract as residential.

Nonconforming uses are usually continued with the expectation that they will eventually disappear. Cf. Colati v. Jirout, 186 Md. 652, 657 . For a discussion of the problem in other