Agenda - Planning Commission - 02/01/2000

Home

Z.B. December 10, 1999 -- Page 5 Lot size m Was four-sided, unsymmetrical lot irregularly shaped? VIRGINIA (I1/5/99) -- Kirkbride owned a quadrilateral lot, roughly trap- ezoidal in shape, with a 100.09-foot front line. The lot was approximately 200 feet deep. Because the west lot line was slightly .askew, the lot narrowed to a parallel back lot line of 90.37' feet. The lot was located in a zone where lots were required to be at least 6,000 square feet and have an average width of at least 60 feet. The county zoning administrator's office approved a prelLr~nary plat subdi- viding the lot. The subdivision created two lots and required the Kirkbrides to remove a sunr0om porch on their residence to comply with setback regulations. One of the subdivided lots was a quadrilateral with no parallel sides and no congruent angles. It had a front line of 60.04 feet. Immediately beyond the front line,'the lot narrowed tO less than' 60 feet. At 105.-16 feet along the west- lot line, the south-lot line was set at approxkaately a 45-degree angle to the southeast, creating a south-lot line o£o71.6 feet and an east-lot line of 150.94 feet. It consisted of more than 6,000 square feet. Higgs owned neighboring prOperty. After the zoning administrator apprOved the subdivision plat, Higgs fried a petition with the county board of zoning appeals, challenging the zoning administrator's determination that the new lot conformed with the minimum width requirements of the zone. He contended the frrst lot was irregularly shaped, so the zoning .administrator could not use the south-lot line as the rear-lot line in the measurements determining the aver- age width of'the lot. He further argUed calculations in the manner applicable to irregularly shaped lots gave the lot an .average width of only 48.11 feet. The zoning ordinance stated the rear-lot line was the lot line most distant from, and most nearly parallel to, the front-lot line, In the case of a triangular or otherwise irregularly shaped lot, the.. rear-lot line was a line at least ten feet in !eng.th entirely within the.lot, paral!el to the front line, and at a maximum distance from the fronMot line. The board of zoning appeals foun~the lot tc~ be irregularly shaped. Conse- quently, it ruled in favor of Higgs and reversed the zoning administrator's decision. Kirkbride appealed to the court. He claimed that because the lot was quad- rilateral, it was not triangular or otherwise irregularly shaped. The court agreed and reversed the board of zoning appehls decision. Higgs appealed. DECISION: Reversed. .~ The decision of a board of zoning, appeals could be reversed or modified only if it was plainly wrong. The ordinance provided no definition for "otherwise irregularly shaped lot." It was clear from the definition of a rear-lot line as the "line which [wa]s the most distance from, and most nearly parallel with, the front lot line," that the lot did not need to be perfectly symmetrical to have an identifiable rear-lot line. However, by including a separate provision for determining the length of