## Facts

- Baltimore City enacted Ordinance No. 922, a zoning ordinance dividing the city into districts, including residence districts with limited permitted uses.
- Daniel Goldman and his wife owned a four-story dwelling in a designated residence district.
- Goldman used the basement to repair used clothing for hire by hand and with a sewing machine.
- He made no structural changes to the building and contended the activity required no permit.
- City officials asserted the use violated the zoning ordinance; Goldman was arrested on a related complaint.
- Goldman applied to the building inspector for a permit to use the premises for the clothing-repair business; the inspector refused, citing the zoning ordinance and claimed discretionary permitting authority.
- Goldman sought a writ of mandamus to compel issuance of the permit.

## Issues

1. Whether Baltimore’s zoning ordinance provisions restricting uses in residence districts were a valid exercise of the police power or an unconstitutional deprivation of property rights.
2. Whether police power may support uncompensated restrictions grounded primarily in aesthetics or generalized “prosperity,” absent a concrete relation to public health, safety, morals, comfort, or welfare.
3. Whether, if the use restrictions were invalid, mandamus should issue to compel the building inspector and city officials to grant the requested permit.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Maryland reversed the denial of mandamus and remanded.
- The court held invalid the zoning ordinance provisions that attempted to regulate and restrict the use of property, for lack of a substantial relation to recognized police-power objectives.
- The court rejected aesthetics and “elastic and indeterminate” claims of general prosperity as sufficient stand-alone grounds for restricting property use without compensation.
- Because the city’s refusal rested on an invalid use prohibition rather than a demonstrated threat to public interests, Goldman was entitled to relief compelling issuance of the permit.

## Legal Principles

- Police-power regulations that burden constitutionally protected property rights must bear a definite, tangible, and substantial relation to public health, safety, morals, comfort, or welfare.
- The state may impose reasonable property-use restrictions in urban settings, but restrictions cannot stand when they operate as arbitrary deprivations untethered to legitimate public protections.
- Property use may not be restricted without compensation for purely aesthetic reasons or for vague objectives such as general prosperity, absent a concrete public-protection basis.
- Mandamus is available to compel an official act where denial rests on an invalid legal ground rather than lawful discretion.

## Conclusion

Maryland’s highest court invalidated Baltimore’s zoning-based use restrictions as applied to bar a harmless home basement clothing-repair business because the restrictions were not substantially connected to recognized police-power purposes; it reversed the lower court and directed relief by mandamus to require issuance of the permit.


Goldman v. Crowther, 147 Md. 282, 128 A. 50 (1925)