Swoboda v. Wilder

920 A.2d 518

173 Md. App. 615

Lawrence SWOBODA, et al. v. Charles WILDER, et ux.

No. 0070, Sept. Term, 2006.

Court of Special Appeals of Maryland.

April 4, 2007.

J. Carroll Holzer, Towson, for appellant.

Justin J. King, Towson, for appellee.

Panel ADKINS, WOODWARD and CHARLES E. MOYLAN, JR. (Retired, Specially Assigned) JJ.

ADKINS, J.

In this appeal from the approval of a Rodgers Forge building permit, we shall hold that determining the front, side, and rear orientation of a townhouse end unit situated at the corner of intersecting streets requires consideration of all physical characteristics of the property, not merely street address and foundation walls, and that in an appropriate case an end unit may front on a different street than the interior units in the same townhouse group.

The residence at the center of this litigation is an end of group townhouse at the corner of Pinehurst and Murdock Roads. The hotly debated question in Rodgers Forge is: which of these intersecting streets does this property front? The answer mattered to appellees Charles and Brigid Wilder,¹ because it determined where the front, side, and rear yards are located on their property, and consequently, whether the renovation plans approved by the Baltimore County Board of Appeals (the Board) comply with county setback requirements.

The interior townhomes that lie between the Wilder home and the corresponding end unit of this housing group unquestionably face Murdock Road. Like these neighbors, the Wilder home has a Murdock Road mailing address. Unlike the interior homes and the other end unit in this townhouse group, however, both the front door and the floor plan of Wilder property are oriented toward Pinehurst Road. Citing that orientation, the Department of Permits and Management, the Zoning Commissioner, and the Board concluded that the property fronts on Pinehurst Road for setback purposes. The Circuit Court for Baltimore County affirmed the Board.

Appellants are the Wilders' neighbors and the Rodgers Forge Community Association (the Protestants).² They challenge the Board's decision, decrying its precedential effect on their individual properties and their community as a whole. They raise three questions for our review, which we restate as follows:

I. Did the Board err in failing to rule as a matter of law that Murdock Road is the front of the subject site?

II. Did the Board err in considering the testimony of the Wilders and their architectural expert Warren G. Nagey of Chesapeake Design Group?

III. Is the Board's decision arbitrary and capricious in light of its "inconsistent" prior decision in Dorothy K. and Cheryl A. Milligan, No. 02-519-A?

We find neither error nor inconsistency, and affirm the judgment.

FACTS AND LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

Baltimore County Zoning Laws

The setback requirements for the Wilder property are 10 feet for side yards and 50 feet for rear yards. See Baltimore County Zoning Regulations (BCZR) Art. 1B01.C. The County defines front, rear, and side yards as follows:

YARD, FRONT — A yard extending across the full width of the lot, between the front lot line and the front foundation wall of the main building.

YARD, REAR — A yard extending across the full width of the lot, between the rear lot line and the rear foundation of the main building.

YARD, SIDE — A yard extending from the front yard to the rear yard, between the side lot line and the side foundation wall of the main building.

BCZR § 101 (emphasis added).

Section 400 of the BCZR governs accessory buildings in residential zones, providing in pertinent part:

400.1 Accessory buildings in residence zones . . . shall be located only in the rear yard and shall occupy not more than 40% thereof. On corner lots they shall be located only in the third of the lot farthest removed from any street and shall occupy not more than 50% of such third. . . .

400.2.b For the purposes of determining required setbacks, . . . alleys shall be considered the same as existing (improved) streets. The same shall apply to corner lots regarding the placement of accessory buildings . . . .

400.3 The height of accessory buildings . . . shall not exceed 15 feet. (Emphasis added.)

The Neighborhood And Property

Rodgers Forge is a Baltimore County community of approximately 1,800 brick residences that were developed beginning in the late 1930's by the James Keelty Company as a planned row house development. The neighborhood consists of six parallel streets running east-west and four intersecting streets running north-south; it lies between Bellona Avenue and York Road.

The Wilder lot is a trapezoid shaped 0.8 acre corner lot, zoned D.R. 10.5, with its longest street frontage being 113'4" along Pinehurst Road and its shortest frontage being 31'6" along Murdock Road. The property gradually widens from Murdock Road, to a width of 58'3" along a 15' alley that parallels Murdock Road and intersects Pinehurst Road. Although approximately 600 homes in "the Forge" are end of group units, many of these differ from the Wilder residence in that they (a) are not located on a corner lot, (b) have their main entrances leading from the same street as all the interior homes in their housing group, (c) have only one exterior door that faces the "address" street, and/or (d) share the same roofline, footprint, and common foundation walls as the interior units in the same group.

Photographs show that the roofline of the Wilder residence is trussed perpendicularly to the common roof line of the interior units in the same housing group, so that the Wilder roof faces west toward Pinehurst Road rather than north toward Murdock Road. In addition, the Wilder residence has a different and larger footprint than the adjacent interior residences in the housing group. Specifically, the Wilder residence is wider and deeper than adjacent interior units, so that the east wall separating appellant Goldman's residence from the Wilder residence is only partially shared. Moreover, as a result of this larger footprint, the common foundation wall facing north toward Murdock Road, in which all interior units of this housing group have their front entrances, "dead ends" into the east wall of the Wilder residence, forming a 90 degree corner where Goldman's residence intersects with the Wilder residence. Similarly, the rear foundation wall common to the interior units ends at another 90 degree corner into the alley side of the Wilders' east wall.

The floor plan of the Wilders' home is oriented so that a centrally located entry door and hallway faces west toward Pinehurst Road. Off this foyer are a living room, dining room, and staircase. Leading out from this door to the sidewalk along Pinehurst Road, there is an approximately 6' by 4' stone stoop and matching path. To the right and left of the door are symmetrical bay windows that extrude from the 39 foot wide facia facing Pinehurst. On the second floor, centered above the door and bay windows, are three smaller windows flanked by shutters. On the third floor are three dormer windows.

The north side of the Wilder home facing Murdock Road measures only 22.5 feet in width. It has a door located to the right of a brick chimney, a shuttered window to the left of the chimney, and a raised 16' by 8' stone porch. The door from the patio leads directly into the living room. There are no steps or path leading from the porch to the sidewalk on Murdock Road. On the second floor are two shuttered windows on either side of the chimney. On the third floor, where the pitch of the roof reduces the width of this side, two smaller and unshuttered windows flank the chimney.

The south side of the property has a door leading from the kitchen to a yard. A detached 20' by 20' brick garage lies between this side of the house and the alley paralleling Murdock Road. A gated wooden privacy fence extends from the corner of this face to the sidewalk on Pinehurst Road, then continues along that sidewalk to a gated masonry wall that separates the Wilder yard from the alley. Another wooden privacy fence separates the Wilder yard from the adjacent yard of appellant Jill Goldman.

The east side of the Wilder residence separates it from the Goldman residence. As noted above, however, the Wilder's east wall extends beyond the footprint of the Goldman residence.

Representing that the front yard of their home faces Pinehurst Road, the Wilders obtained a building permit to add a 13' by 13' one story extension to their kitchen, as well as an 8.5' by 13' covered porch connected to the kitchen addition, for a total expansion of 21.5' by 13'. If the front of the Wilder home does face toward Pinehurst Road, then the kitchen addition would be in the "alley" side yard, between the house and the garage, and therefore in compliance with the 10 foot side yard setback required under Baltimore County zoning law. If the front of the Wilder home faces Murdock Road, however, then the proposed addition would be in the rear yard, so that a variance reducing the 50 foot setback to 29 feet would be necessary.

Neighborhood Objections

An anonymous complaint to zoning authorities asserted that the Wilder home fronts on Murdock rather than Pinehurst Road. The County inspected the property, then issued a stop work order on the ground that the Wilders' permit had been obtained through "false or misleading information" regarding the orientation of the property. The Wilders successfully challenged the stop work order, obtaining the Zoning Commissioner's ruling that their property faces Pinehurst Road.

The Protestants object that the construction of the proposed addition in the yard between the Wilder home and the alley would break up the continuity of the open yards in the rear of interior units comprising the Wilders' townhome group. When the stop work order was rescinded, the Protestants appealed to the Board.

Asserting "a public interest in the proper definition or analysis of the situation of front, side,...