Howard Cnty. v. McClain

254 Md.App. 190

270 A.3d 1062

HOWARD COUNTY, Maryland

v.Russell A. MCCLAIN, et al.

No. 1166, Sept. Term, 2020

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

February 25, 2022

Argued by: Tsega Girma (Louis P. Ruzzi, Gary W. Kuc, Howard County Solicitor, Ellicott City, MD), on brief, for Appellant.

Argued by: Grant Amadeus Giel (Law Office of G. Macy Nelson, LLC, Towson, MD), on brief, for Appellee.

Graeff, Kehoe, Sally D. Adkins (Senior Judge, Specially Assigned), JJ.

Adkins, Sally D., J.

This case presents an uncommon occurrence—a successful constitutional challenge to a zoning authority's textual amendment. Glenelg Country School ("GCS") was granted an exclusive use easement by Appellees, a group of persons who own pipestem strips of land adjacent to GCS's property. In order to build on and around the pipestems, GCS submitted a conditional use petition to the Howard County Hearing Examiner. The Hearing Examiner denied the petition and GCS appealed. Then, GCS filed for a Zoning Regulation Amendment to amend the Howard County Zoning Regulations regarding conditional uses. The Howard County Council limited GCS's proposed amendments to the zoning regulations to apply only to private academic schools. After limiting the scope of the proposed amendments, the Howard County Council enacted GCS's proposed Zoning Regulation Amendment as Council Bill No. 9-2020 ("CB-9").

The Appellees filed a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment against Howard County in the Circuit Court for Howard County, asserting that CB-9 is an illegal special law prohibited by Article III, § 33 of the Maryland Constitution. Howard County filed a Motion to Dismiss, or in the alternative, for Summary Judgment and Appellees filed a Motion for Summary Judgment. The circuit court denied Howard County's Motion for Summary Judgment and granted Appellees’ Motion for Summary Judgment declaring CB-9 an illegal special law.

Howard County presents us with one question on appeal:

1. Whether the circuit court erroneously concluded that CB-9, a Zoning Regulation Amendment enacted by the Howard County Council, is an unlawful special law in violation of Article III, Section 33, when on its face CB-9 applies equally to numerous private academic schools approved, or to be approved in the future, as a conditional use in multiple Zoning Districts in Howard County?

For the reasons below we affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Appellees own property along the southern edge of a property owned by GCS. The Appellees are among a class of persons who own nearby residential properties including twenty-two 12-inch-wide pipestem strips of land that converge into a single strip that runs along the northwestern edge of the GCS property and connects to the public Folly Quarter Road. The Appellees and GCS entered into an easement agreement in 2007. The easement agreement gave GCS the "non-exclusive right to use the Easement Area for the following specific purposes, and for no other purposes, to wit, to maintain: (i) an existing play area, (ii) certain existing paving, (iii) two (2) existing pipes or conduits, (iv) an existing split rail fence, (v) and the right of ingress and egress to, from, over and across the Easement Area, strictly for the purposes of implementing maintenance of the aforementioned items ...."¹ In August of 2008, the Appellees and GCS amended the easement agreement to give GCS the exclusive right to use the Easement Area.

Because GCS wanted to construct on the pipestems that were part of the Easement Area, GCS submitted a conditional use petition to the Howard County Hearing Examiner in October 2016. GCS did not seek written approval from the pipestem owners for its conditional use petition. The Conditional Use Petition to the Howard County Hearing Authority states that, "[i]f the Petitioner is not the owner [of the property at issue in the Petition], written authorization from the owner must be submitted." The Howard County Hearing Examiner denied GCS's petition in regard to construction on the pipestem area stating that "[n]o school use is permitted on the pipestems." GCS appealed this denial to the Howard County Board of Appeals. This appeal is unresolved.

Taking a new approach, in April 2019, GCS filed for a Zoning Regulation Amendment ("ZRA"), ZRA-188, to amend the Howard County Zoning Regulations, in particular § 131.0 relating to conditional uses. ZRA-188 sought to amend three provisions within ZR § 131.0. The proposed amendments were as follows:

Amend Section 131.0.D to exempt setback requirements from lots in common ownership and allow the Hearing Authority to grant setback variances for Conditional Uses; Amend Section 131.0.F.2 to accept easements as written authorization for a petition; and, Amend Section 131.0.N.48 to include child day care and nursery schools as an accessory use to Schools, Colleges, Universities—Private (Academic) .²

Prerequisites to getting a proposed amendment on the Howard County Council's legislative agenda include a recommendation and report from the Planning Board and a technical staff report from the Department of Planning and Zoning. See Howard County Code § 16.208(c)(2). The Planning Board recommended that the Howard County Council deny all three proposed amendments in ZRA-188. The Department of Planning and Zoning, however, in its technical report, recommended approval of all the amendments, with slight modifications.

ZRA-188 was introduced before the Howard County Council as CB-9. The Council amended the proposed language of CB-9 to apply only to private academic schools. CB-9 amends the Howard County Zoning Regulations in the following three respects. First, the proposed bill exempts private academic schools from setback requirements of ZR §§ 131.0.N and 131.0.O if the property from which the setback is measured is owned by the petitioner (private academic school) or if the petitioner has an exclusive easement and owns the property on the opposite side of the easement. The same amended provision allows the Hearing Authority to treat multiple adjacent exclusive pipestem easements as a single easement if the total width of the adjacent pipestem easements does not exceed 75 feet.

Second, CB-9 allows the Hearing Authority to proceed with a private academic school's proposed conditional use or variance petition if the proposed use is consistent with the terms and conditions of the petitioner's exclusive easement and each fee simple property owner has been notified in writing. Third, when the petitioner is a private academic school, written authorization from the property owner may be in the form of a recorded exclusive easement.

The above amendments to ZR § 131.0, through CB-9, were approved by the Howard County Council on June 2, 2020. The bill was to take effect 61 days after approval. Appellees filed a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment against Howard County and its County Council in Howard County Circuit Court challenging the constitutionality of CB-9. Appellees alleged that CB-9 was a special law and thus unconstitutional under Maryland Constitution, Article III § 33.

Howard County filed a Motion to Dismiss, or in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment.³ Appellees opposed Howard County's Motion to Dismiss, or in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment and filed their own Motion for Summary Judgment. The circuit court denied Howard County's Motion to Dismiss, or in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment and granted the Appellees’ Motion for Summary Judgment declaring CB-9 an illegal special law. This appeal followed.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review a grant of summary judgment to determine if it was "legally correct." Montgomery Cnty. v. Soleimanzadeh , 436 Md. 377, 398, 82 A.3d 187 (2013) (quoting Hines v. French , 157 Md. App. 536, 549–50, 852 A.2d 1047 (2004) ). When there is no genuine dispute of fact, "we review the circuit court's ruling on the law, considering the same material from the record and deciding the same legal issues as the circuit court." Messing v. Bank of Am., N.A. , 373 Md. 672, 684, 821 A.2d 22 (2003) (citing Green v. H & R Block, Inc. , 355 Md. 488, 502, 735 A.2d 1039 (1999) ).

DISCUSSION

The implementation of special laws is prohibited under Article III, § 33 of the Maryland Constitution. "A special law is one that relates to particular persons or things of a class, as distinguished from a general law which applies to all persons or things of a class." Cnty. Comm'rs of Prince George's Cnty. v. Baltimore & O. R. Co. , 113 Md. 179, 183, 77 A. 433 (1910). The definition of a special law does not provide a "mechanical rule of thumb" for deciding cases, because it depends on what constitutes a "class." State v. Good Samaritan Hosp. of Maryland, Inc. , 299 Md. 310, 329, 473 A.2d 892 (1984). "[T]o determine whether an enactment affects less than an entire class and, therefore, meets the special law requirements[,]" courts look to the purpose of § 33's constitutional prohibition. Id. (internal quotations omitted).

One of the most important reasons for the provision in the Maryland constitution against special legislation is "to prevent one who has sufficient influence to secure legislation from getting an undue advantage over others[.]" Maryland Dep't of Env't v. Days Cove Reclamation Co., Inc. , 200 Md. App. 256, 265, 27 A.3d 565 (2011) (quoting Cities Serv. Co. v. Governor , 290 Md. 553, 568, 431 A.2d 663 (1981) ); see also Dan Friedman, Applying Federal Constitutional Theory to the Interpretation of State Constitutions: The Ban on Special Laws in Maryland , 71 Md. L. Rev. 411, 422 (2012) (noting that Courts should first look to "whether the legislation violates the historical purpose of the constitutional provision"). A special law can be constitutional, "if it is tailored to meet new conditions" that the general law is not adapted to meet. See Days Cove , 200 Md. App. 256, 281, 27 A.3d 565 (quoting Jones v. House of Reformation , 176 Md. 43, 57, 3 A.2d 728 (1939) ).

To determine whether a law is an impermissible special law that...