Ocean City Board of Zoning Appeals
government · founded 1946
Established by Paragraph 24 of Zoning Ordinance No. 99 on 7 May 1946 and constituted on 1 October 1946: five members appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the council, four-year terms staggered at the outset, with a chairman named by the Mayor. Its first members were James Farlow and Walter H. Jarman for one year, Dr. C. W. Purnell for two, Franklin Waller for three and John P. Whaley for four, with Waller - who had chaired the Zoning Commission that wrote the ordinance - named chairman by Mayor Trimper. Farlow had replaced Harland Huston, who was struck out in manuscript on the lawyers' draft list of 4 May and never sat. The Board hears appeals from the Building Inspector, decides special exceptions, and grants variances; four of its five votes are needed to reverse the Inspector or to grant anything at all. It alone could authorise an amusement park, penny arcade, night club, dance hall or restaurant with dancing in Ocean City, and only in a BB district. The ordinance requires it to meet in public, to record the vote of each member on each question, and to keep its records as a public record in its own office. On 15 November 1946, six weeks after it was named, the council agreed that small repair and alteration jobs would be better O.K.'d by the Inspector than sent to it.
In the record (2)
1946 · 1946-10-01
Ocean City's first Board of Zoning Appeals was confirmed on 1 October 1946 with the man who had chaired the Zoning Commission as its chairman - and one seat already changed hands before the board was ever listed.
'The appointment of Mr. James Farlow to take place of Mr. Harland Huston on Zoning Appeal Board for one year was approved', and the clerk then set the board out in full: James Farlow, one year; Walter H. Jarman, one year; Dr. C. W. Purnell, two years; Franklin Waller, three years; John P. Whaley, four years. Mayor Trimper named Waller chairman. Ordinance No. 99 required exactly this - five members, staggered two/one/one/one at one, two, three and four years, one designated chairman by the Mayor - and the council's instinct on 21 May had been simply 'to ask the same members to serve that were on the Zoning Board'. It substantially did: Waller chaired the Zoning Commission organised in May 1945 and Purnell was its secretary, so the men who wrote the ordinance now sat on the board that heard appeals from it. The substitution was made before the meeting: on the lawyers' draft of 4 May, 'Harland Houston' is struck through in manuscript with 'James Farlow' written above it, and the two-year seat there reads 'John W. Purnell'.
Ocean City Zoning CommissionFrank WallerDr. Charles Washington PurnellJohn P. WhaleyDaniel W. Trimper, Jr.
Source · checked 2026-08-15
1946 · 1946-11-15
Six weeks after constituting its Board of Zoning Appeals, Ocean City decided that small repairs need not go to it at all - the Building Inspector could simply O.K. the work.
'Question of permits was discussed, and Council agreed for the small repair or alteration jobs that it would be better for [the] Inspector to O.K. the work rather than send it to [the] Appeal Board.' It is recorded as the council's own judgment, with no motion and no reference to any provision of Ordinance No. 99 - which requires the Building Inspector to forward within ten days any application that only the Board can grant, and requires four of five concurring votes for the Board to grant anything. The same meeting refused Roland Beauchamp permission to use wood shingles, the first recorded permit refusal on materials under the new regime, in a town that had burned before and had just written an eight-inch-masonry incentive into its zoning law.
Source · checked 2026-08-15