## Facts

- Property owners bought a 12-acre waterfront lot in Talbot County, Maryland, located within the Chesapeake Bay Critical Area.
- They developed the lot with a home and recreational improvements and constructed an extensive network of pathways connecting the amenities and the waterfront.
- Their daughter had muscular dystrophy and used a motorized wheelchair; the pathways were designed to allow wheelchair access throughout the property, including to the pier.
- Two key pathways included a brick-in-cement path from the house to the pier and a brick-in-sand path running near the waterfront edge.
- The pathways were built without required permits and included portions within the 100-foot Critical Area buffer, where new impervious surface and development were tightly restricted.
- After enforcement action, the owners sought a variance to legalize the pathways, arguing they were needed as a reasonable accommodation and that mitigation plantings reduced environmental impacts.
- The Chesapeake Bay Critical Area Commission opposed the variance due to buffer protections and the pathways’ location.

## Issues

1. Whether Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to local zoning administration and variance decisions affecting Critical Area buffer restrictions.
2. Whether the Board of Appeals’ variance approval was supported by substantial evidence and consistent with applicable zoning/Critical Area standards, including a subsequently enacted county ordinance authorizing reasonable accommodations for disabled persons.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals of Maryland reversed the circuit court and reinstated the Board of Appeals’ decision granting the variance.
- The court declined to decide whether ADA Title II applies to the administration and enforcement of the zoning ordinance.
- The court held the Board’s decision was supported by substantial evidence and was within the Board’s discretion under Maryland zoning review standards.
- The court treated the county’s intervening enactment authorizing reasonable accommodations as confirming the legitimacy of considering disability-related access needs in zoning decisions.
- The court found the record supported the Board’s findings regarding the access need, site conditions, and mitigation/environmental impacts.

## Legal Principles

- Judicial review of local zoning/variance decisions is limited; a court asks whether the decision is supported by substantial evidence and is “fairly debatable,” not whether the court would have reached the same result.
- A zoning board may consider disability-related access needs as part of an “unnecessary hardship” or similar variance analysis when supported by record evidence.
- Where local law authorizes reasonable accommodations for disabled persons in zoning administration, a variance decision grounded in that policy is entitled to deference if supported by substantial evidence.
- An appellate court may avoid deciding a broader federal statutory question when the case can be resolved on state-law grounds and the administrative record supports reinstatement of the local decision.

## Conclusion

The court reinstated a variance legalizing buffer-area pathways because the Board’s accommodation-based findings and environmental/mitigation findings were supported by substantial evidence under deferential zoning review, and the court resolved the case without deciding the reach of ADA Title II in zoning enforcement.


Mastandrea v. North, 361 Md. 107, 760 A.2d 677 (Md. 2000)