Southland Hills Improvement Ass'n of Baltimore County, Inc. v. Raine

Brun®, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. These two cases were argued together in this Court and will be treated together in this single opinion. Southland Hills Improvement Association of Baltimore County, Inc. (the Improvement Association) is the only named appellant in each case. In No. 274 the appellees are the owners of the property known as No. 303 West Chesapeake Avenue in Towson, and in No. 275 the appellees are the owners and contract purchasers of the adjoining lot, No. 305 West Chesapeake Avenue.

These properties are about two blocks from the Courthouse in the rapidly growing county seat of Baltimore County. In each case the appellees applied for a special exception to use the property in question, which was zoned R-A (Residential Apartment), for an office building. The evidence showed that in No. 274 it is proposed that the office building to be erected be used by the Children’s Aid Society and that in No. 275 it is proposed that either the existing building or a new one be used for lawyers’ offices, though the applications are not conditioned upon such uses. After a hearing in each case the petition was approved by the Zoning Commissioner; and on appeal, after a further hearing in each case, the granting of the petition was approved by the County Board of Appeals.

In each case the appellant Improvement Association sought review of the Board’s action by a petition for certiorari in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, and in each case the Circuit Court affirmed the order of the Board of Appeals. The Improvement Association appealed to this Court. In each case the appellees have filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that the Improvement Association is neither a party aggrieved nor a taxpayer and has no standing to maintain its appeal. These motions were argued before the hearing on the merits and decision was reserved.

The Improvement Association asserts that it is not the only appellant, since its petition for certiorari in each case states that it is the petition of the ²¹⁶ Association “and its officers and members” and that some six of them, who appeared and testified before the Board did so individually in the character of persons aggrieved or as taxpayers, or both, and that they have interests in their respective properties which can be adversely affected by the granting of the special exceptions here involved. However, no officer or member of the Improvement Association signed the petition in his capacity as an individual. The Improvement Association also asserts that Section 532(g) of Title 30 of the Code of Public Local Laws of Baltimore County (1955), which was relied upon by the appellees in their respective motions, was repealed by Section 604 of the Charter of Baltimore County upon the adoption of that Charter. The appellees counter by saying that it makes no difference whether Section 532(g) of Title 30 was superseded by Section 604 of the Charter or not, since under the requirement of either one (so far as here material) an appellant must be a party aggrieved or a taxpayer.

We find it unnecessary, for the purposes of this case, to determine whether or not Section 604 of the Charter operated (in conjunction with Section 1111) to repeal Section 532(g) of Title 30. We may observe, however, that Section 604 of the Charter seems somewhat more restricted since it confers a right of appeal from the Board to the Circuit Court and from the Circuit Court to the Court of Appeals only upon a “party aggrieved” and does not mention a taxpayer. Inferentially, if not expressly, Section 532(g) of Title 30 appears to confer such a right of appeal upon a taxpayer, since it would seem that anyone entitled to file a petition in the Circuit Court (as either any taxpayer or person aggrieved may do under that Section) would also have a