Agenda - Planning Commission - 02/01/2018

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Zoning Bulletin January 10, 2018 I Volume 12 I Issue 1 land Constitution generally authorized the county commissioners of a home rule county to repeal public local law by resolution, as occurred here. Wateiivan and the Town filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, which the Court of Appeals of Maryland granted. DECISION: Judgment of Court of Special Appeals affirmed. The Court of Appeals of Maryland agreed that neither the text nor the legislative history of LG § 4-416 explicitly provided that a county could rescind approval of a new zoning classification of land recently annexed by a municipality. However, the court found that, under the common law, county commissioners had the authority to rescind such approval, and that nothing in the text or legislative history of LG § 4- 416 indicated an intent to preclude a county from exercising whatever authority the county may have under existing law to rescind an action taken by its governing body. The court found that, under the common law, as a general rule, "the. governing body of a local government 'has the right to reconsider its actions and ordinances, and adopt a measure or ordinance that has previously been defeated or rescind one that has been previously adopted before the rights of third parties have vested.' " The court said that general principle was "related to the idea that a legislative body ordinarily lacks authority to restrict the legislative activities of its successors." Were it otherwise, explained the court, "legislative action would be frozen in time with local officials unable to react to changed circumstances or to pursue policies presently preferred over those previously adopted." Consistent with that common law authority, the court noted that the Maryland Constitution explicitly confers authority on.a code home rule county —like the County here —to repeal a public local law (as the Court of Special Appeals had found). (See Maryland Constitution, Article XI-F.) The parties here had debated whether the County resolu- tion rescinding Waterman's rezoning approval was a "public local law" under Maryland. The Court of Appeals found it unnecessary to decide that question to resolve the case, since it had deteinuned that the County Commissioners had common law authority to rescind the resolution. However, the court did say that it would "be inclined to agree" with the Court of Special Appeals that the County resolution at play here was a public local law of the County. For those reasons, the Court of Appeals concluded that the County had the authority to rescind its assent to the Town's rezoning of Waterman's property in conjunction with the Town's annexation of the property. Accordingly, under LG § 4-406, the new PRC zoning clas- sification for the property would not become effective until five years after annexation, unless the County should approve the rezoning in the interim. © 2018 Thomson Reuters 7