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Legal History Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2009

Selected Works

Property Law and Real Estate

Zoning

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Legal History

High Society: The Building Height Limitation On Baltimore's Mt. Vernon Place, Garrett Power Sep 2009

High Society: The Building Height Limitation On Baltimore's Mt. Vernon Place, Garrett Power

Garrett Power

The "Anti Skyscraper" Law of 1904 is often described as Maryland's first zoning law and one of the first zoning laws in the United States. But there is more. Behind this dusty statute is a story of speculation, selfishness, collusion and changing social values, which takes a century and a half to unfold and which has something to say about the role of government in regulating the use of land.


Pyrrhic Victory: Daniel Goldman's Defeat Of Zoning In The Maryland Court Of Appeals, Garrett Power Sep 2009

Pyrrhic Victory: Daniel Goldman's Defeat Of Zoning In The Maryland Court Of Appeals, Garrett Power

Garrett Power

Nowadays government regulation of the use of urban land is taken for granted. Such was not always the case. Some sixty years ago, the Maryland Court of Appeals held it unconstitutional for Zoning Commissioner J. Frank Crowther to deny a request for a permit to operate a tailor shop in the basement of a Eutaw Place home. This paper examines the case of Goldman v. Crowther. Goldman's story reads like a comic melodrama with a tragic ending. But the saga also illuminates the social condition - it sheds light and casts shadows on the practice of xenophobia, the nature of …