Agenda - Planning Commission - 08/05/2010

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Zoning Bulletin May 25, 2010 1 Volume 4 I No. 10 Schefer's lots were designated as "substandard lots" under the city's zon- ing ordinance. In 2006, the city adopted Zoning Ordinance 1799. That ordinance restricted the permissible height and yard set -back regulations for a one - family dwelling on substandard lots in the city's residential districts. More specifically, Ordinance 1799 set a formula for calculating the al- lowable building height of one -family dwellings on such lots: "substan- dard lot building height shall be determined as a ratio of actual for area to the required lot area, multiplied by the maximum allowable height in the underling zoning district." Ordinance 1799 further provided that substandard lot building height could not be required to be less than 25 feet. "Thus, the maximum height of one -family dwellings on substan- dard lots in the R1-B zoning district [ranged] between 25 and 35 feet, depending on the size of each lot." For "standard" lots in the R1-B zon- ing district, the maximum height of one -family dwellings remained 35 feet. After determining that the maximum building height for one of his substandard lots was 28.04 feet, Schefer filed a legal action against the city. He argued that Ordinance 1799 should be declared void because it violated the state's uniformity requirement as set forth in Code § 15.2- 2282 (the "Uniformity Requirement"). The Uniformity Requirement provides that: "[a]Il zoning regulations shall be uniform for each class or kind of buildings and uses throughout each district, but the regulations in one district may differ from those in other districts." Schefer main- tained that the Uniformity Requirement prevented the city from impos- ing —under Ordinance 1799—different building height regulations on one -family dwellings in the R1-B zoning district based solely on lot size. The circuit court issued judgment in favor of the city. Schefer appealed. The Court's Decision: Judgment of circuit court affirmed. The Supreme Court of Virginia held that Ordinance 1799 did not vio- late the Uniformity Requirement. The court explained that "[t]he crux of the [U]niformity [R]equire- ment [was] to assure that zoning regulations are nondiscriminatory." It reaffirmed "the equal protection of the law guaranteed to all persons by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution." It prohibited the re- striction on a land use to -one landowner that is permitted to another similarly situated —when such restriction is not substantially related to the public health, safety, or welfare. The court also noted that, by its plain terms, the Uniformity Requirement applies only to those "buildings and uses" of the same "class or kind." Schefer had argued that one -family dwellings were "buildings and uses" of the same "class or kind." Therefore, he maintained, the city had to impose identical building height regulations on standard and sub- standard lots in the Rl-B zoning district. The court disagreed. Here, the court found that there were two "kind[s] of uses" involved: (1) residen- © 2010 Thomson Reuters 3 151