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REPORTED IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS OF MARYLAND No. 0070 September Term, 2006 LAWRENCE SWOBODA, ET AL. v.
REPORTED
IN THE COURT OF SPECIAL APPEALS
OF MARYLAND
No. 0070
September Term, 2006
LAWRENCE SWOBODA, ET AL.
v.
CHARLES WILDER, ET UX.
Adkins,
Woodward,
Moylan, Charles E., Jr.
(Retired, Specially Assigned)
JJ.
Opinion by Adkins, J.
Filed: April 4, 2007 1
After briefing, the Wilders advised that they sold the
property. They elected not to participate in oral argument.
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 2
Appellants are the Rodgers Forge Community Association and
individual residents of Rodgers Forge: Lawrence Swoboda, Joseph
Segreti, John and Norma OHara, Ron and Carol Zielke, Renee Rees,
Sarah Kahl, Doug Campbell, Jennifer Clouse, Brent and Ann Matthews,
Claire McGinnis, Jean Duvall, Bruce Hirshauer, Jeff Wible, Jennifer
Sheggrud, Bernice Hirshauer, Barbara Leons, Robert Williams, and
Roxanne and John Rinehart.
2
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
Boards 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 Boards 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 3
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 . 4
. . 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 5
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
Goldmans 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 Goldmans 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. 6
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 Wilders east wall
extend