THEODORE R. MCKELDIN, GOVERNOR 5

encouraging the most appropriate use of land throughout
such municipality.

227D. The Mayor and Council of Pocomoke City may
provide for the manner in which such regulations and re-
strictions and the boundaries of such districts shall be de-
termined, established, and enforced, and from time to time
amended, supplemented, or changed. However, no such
regulation, restriction or boundary shall become effective
until after a public hearing in relation thereto, at which
parties in interest and citizens shall have an opportunity to
be heard. At least 15 days' notice of the time and place of
such hearing shall be published in a paper of general circu-
lation in Worcester County.

227E. Such regulations, restrictions and boundaries may
from time to time be amended, supplemented, changed,
modified, or repealed. In case, however, of a protest
against such change, signed by the owners of 20 per cent,
or more either of the area of the lots included in such pro-
posed change or of those immediately adjacent in the rear
thereof extending 100 feet therefrom, or of those directly
opposite lots extending 100 feet from the street frontage of
such opposite lots, such amendment shall not become effec-
tive except by the favorable vote of all the members of the
legislative body of such municipality. The provisions of
the previous section relative to public hearings and official
notice shall apply equally to all changes or amendments.

227F. In order to avail itself of the powers conferred
by the Act, the Mayor and Council of Pocomoke City may
appoint a commission, and establish the number of mem-
bers thereof, to be known as the Zoning Commission, to
recommend the boundaries of the various original districts
and appropriate regulations to be enforced therein. Such
Commission shall make a preliminary report and hold pub-
lic hearings thereon before submitting its final report, and
the Mayor and Council of Pocomoke City shall not hold its
public hearings or take action until it has received the final
report of such Commission.

227G. (a) The Mayor and Council of Pocomoke City
may provide for the appointment of a Board of Zoning Ap-
peals, and in the regulations and restrictions adopted pur-
suant to the authority of this Act may provide that the said
Board of Zoning Appeals may, in appropriate cases and
subject to appropriate conditions and safeguards, make
special exceptions to the terms of the ordinance in harmony