Smith v. M. C.C. of Baltimore

Pattlsoh, J., delivered the opinion of the Court-. These appeals, nineteen in all, are from two orders of the Baltimore City Court,, passed on the 18th day of June, 1912. by which the property named in the orders was classified and assessed for taxation for city purposes for the year 1912 as urban property and liable for the full rate, of city taxation. ¹⁴⁴ Twelve appeals are from one order and seven are from the other. The nineteen appeals from the action of the Appeal Tax Court, by agreement- of counsel, were consolidated in two cases and tried in the Baltimore City Court as one case. It was also by agreement- of counsel that the appeals were transmitted to this Court in one record.

In all of these cases the property involved is within that part of Baltimore City that was annexed to it by the Act of 1888, Chapter 98, and is known as the “belt” or “annex.” The twelve pieces of property in the first of these consolidated cases from the block bounded on the north by Mondawmin, on the south by Beech, on the west by Elsinore, and on the east by Eoslyn avenues. The seven pieces of property in the second consolidated case are within the area bounded on the north by Mondawmin, on the south by Beech, on the west by Eoslyn, and on the east by Garrison avenues. These properties* however, do not embrace the entire block. The beds of Beech, Mondawmin, Eoslyn and Elsinore avenues are macadamized, with a gutter on each side about four feet wide, the center of which is either of vitrified brick or gutter stone, and the sloping sides or rebuts are of cobble stones.

On the street side the cobble stone rebut extends to the macadam, and on the other side to a grass pla.t three or four feet wide, beyond which is a cement- sidewalk; in the grass plat trees are planted. By the plan adopted, the vertical curbing, marking extreme side of a street or avenue, which is most generally used, especially in the business section of the city, was not used by the Provident Eealty Company in paving these streets or avenues and in the improvement and development of its property, but substituted for it was the cobble stone rebut that we have described, extending from the gutter stone to the grass plat. Garrison avenue, between the tracks of the railway, is paved with vitrified brick, and on each side of the tracks, to the curbing, with sheet asphalt. This was done in the year 1911 by the City of Baltimore.

The record discloses that fourteen feet and nine inches about in the center of Garrison ¹⁴⁵ avenue was, by deed dated October 13th, 1896, conveyed by the Walbrook Villa Company to the Walbrook, Gwynn Oak and Powhatan Railroad Company. The beds of Beech, Mondawmin, Roslyn and Elisnore avenues, together with other property, were in the year 1900 conveyed to the Provident Realty Company and are still owned by it, with the .exception of Roslyn avenue, which by deed dated March 16th, 1911, was conveyed to the State Roads Commission until ^November 1st, 1912, and after that to the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore. The owners— The Provident Realty Company and the preceding owner— opened, improved and paved the above named avenues. The Appeal Tax Court in its annual classification of property for the purpose of city taxation for the year 1912, classified all the property involved in these proceedings as urban property and subject to the highest rate of city taxation upon real and leasehold property.

From this classification appeals were taken to the Baltimore City Court, as provided by statute, and that Court affirmed the action of the Appeal Tax Court in its classification of such property. It is from the orders of the City Court affirming the action of the Appeal Tax Court that these appeals are taken. The appellant contends that this classification is wrong for the following reasons, as stated by him in his brief: First “The streets which divide this property into blocks are private streets, opened, improved, paved and maintained entirely at the expense of the land owners without any contribution from the public authorities. Second. “Urban property, under the language of the Act, must be bounded by streets, opened, graded, curbed and otherwise improved from curb to curb.

The streets in question are not curbed in any proper sense of the word whatsoever.” First. The Act of 1888, Chapter 98, under which the lands here involved were annexed to the city, provided in section 19, that “until the year nineteen hundred, the rate of taxation for city purposes upon all landed property situ ¹⁴⁶ ated within the territory which, under the provisions of this act, shall be annexed to the City of Baltimore, and upon which taxes would be paid to Baltimore county if said territory should not be annexed to the said city, shall at no time exceed the present tax rate of Baltimore county; and until 'the year nineteen hundred, there shall not be for the purposes of city taxation any increase in the present assessment of such property as is now assessed; * * * from and after the year 1900 the property, real and personal, in the territory so annexed, shall be liable to taxation and assessment, therefor, in the same manner and form as similar property within the present limits of said city may be liable; provided, however, that after the year 1900 the present Baltimore county rate of taxation shall not be increased for city purposes on any landed property within the said territory until avenues, streets or alleys shall have been opened and constructed through the same, nor until there shall be upon every block of ground so to be formed at least six dwelling or store houses ready for occupation.” The construction of this statute was before this Court in the ease of Sindall v. Baltimore City, 93 Md. 526 , the question in that case was, should the property there mentioned pay the full current city tax rate on its assessed value for the year 1900 and thereafter, or was it responsible only for the county rate of the year 1881, under the provisions of section 19 which we have quoted. In that case Sindall was the owner of a parcel of land within the annexed territory and within an area bounded on the north by Boundary avenue, a dedicated but an unaccepted and unimproved street, on the south by a six-foot private alley, on the east by the old York road, a county highway, and on the west by the York Turnpike road, owned and controlled by a corporation that charged and collected tolls for the use of the road. Through the middle of this land the owner, after the passage of the Annexation Act, opened a street extending from the York road to the York Turnpike, and called it Franklin Terrace, but it was unaccepted by the City at the time of the ¹⁴⁷ institution of the proceedings in that case.

Sindall relied upon the decision of this Court in the case of Valentine v. Hagerstown, 86 Md. 486 , in which the statute provided that the property was not to be assessed or taxed for municipal purposes “until a street should be laid out and opened through the same,” and where the Court held that before the property could be taxed for City purposes it was necessary that the street opened by Valentine should be accepted by the Mayor and City Council of Hagerstown, which was not done. But the Court held in the Sindall case, Judge Mc-Shekry delivering the opinion, that the two statutes so differed that the construction or meaning given to the statute in the Valentine case could not be given to the statute in the Sindall case and fully discussed the reasons therefor, and in conclusion said: “When that which had been landed property’ had been built up it became, after the year nineteen hundred, liable to taxation at current city rates without the slightest reference to the existence or non-existence of streets regularly laid out by the city or dedicated by others and accepted by the city. * * Whenever, this formerly rural property has been laid off in lots and houses have been erected thereon as though built upon a street, it becomes liable to the current city tax rate without the slightest reference to the existence of regularly condemned or accepted streets but when the property still remains rural property, then it can not be taxed as city property until blocks have been formed by duly opened and constructed streets and six houses are erected on each block.” In addition to this the Court likewise fully explained the meaning of the term “landed property” as used in the statute. An Act was passed by the succeeding Legislature of 1902 (Chapter 130) which provides: “ ‘Until avenues, streets or alleys shall have been opened and constructed’ shall be construed to mean until avenues, streets or alleys shall have been opened, graded, curbed or otherwise improved from curb to curb, by pavement, macadam, gravel or other substantial ¹⁴⁸ material; the words avenues, streets and alleys being herein used interchangeably. ‘Block of ground’ shall be construed to mean an area of ground not exceeding 200,000 superficial square feet formed and bounded on all sides by intersecting avenues, streets or alleys opened, graded, curbed and otherwise improved from curb to curb by pavement, macadam, gravel or other substantial material, as above provided.” The Act of 1888, Chapter 98, as amended by the Act of 1902, Chapter 130, was before this Court in the case of Coulston v. Baltimore City, 109 Md. 271 . In that case it was contended that a turnpike road, used and graded as a street, could not be treated as one of the boundaries under said Act, in respect to which this Court said, speaking through Judge Bubke: