Agenda - Planning Commission - 06/03/2010

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April 10, 2010 ~ Volume 4 ~ No. 7 Zoning Bulletin It provided that when the Council elected to review a decision made by the ZHE or the Board, the Council: "shall exercise original juris- diction"; and."may... approve, approve with conditions, remand, or deny the application." Section 27-141 provided that the final decision of'the Council must be based on evidence in the record and "support- ed by specific written findings of basic facts and conclusions." The court explained that, pursuant to § 27-312(f), once the Coun- cil elected to review the decision of the ZHE and the Board, it was re- quired to do one of four things: (1) approve the'SE/DD; (2) approve the SE/DD with conditions; (3) remand the SE to the ZHE/remand the DD to the Board; or (4) deny the application for the SE/DD. Also, pursuant to § 27-141 it was required to "make specific written find- ings of basic facts and conclusions." Thus, once it assumed original jurisdiction by electing to make a final decision on the requests, it could not then, without making written findings of facts and conclu- sions, simply decide not to make a final. decision: The ordinance.re- quired otherwise. Thus, the court concluded that the Council "acted illegally when it failed to render a decision after it had elected to ex- ercise original jurisdiction" over the SE Request and the DD Request. The court further held that the Council's decisions-to withdraw its election to make a final decision~onstituted "final decisions" for the purposes of appellate review (i.e., under § 8-106(e). A "final deci- sion" was reached because the Council denied the Neighbors "means of further prosecuting or defending their rights and interest [in East- ern's requests] in proceedings before... [the Council];. thus leaving nothing further for the [Council] to do." See also: Maryland Com'n on Human Relations v. Baltimore Gas ~ Elec. Co., 296 Md. 46, 459 A.2d 205 (1983). I,, '~'J Case Note: The County and Eastern had alternatively argued that the Neighbors' appeal to court should be dismissed be- cause the Neighbors were required to exhaust their administra- tive remedies by filing an appeal to the Council first. The court disagreed. It concluded that the Neighbors were not obligated to file an appeal to the Council. It said this was because once . the Council assumed original jurisdiction to review the ZHE's decision on the SE Request and the Board's decision on the DD Request, the Neighbors had a right to assume that the Council ( } would fulfill its obligations under the county ordinance. 8 © 2010 Thomson Reuters 50