Agenda - Planning Commission - 04/07/1998

Home

Z.B. March 10, 1998 -- Page 5 had to avoid an underwater grassbed. United States Corps of Engineers-and Alabama Department of Environmental Management regulations prohibited the construction of piers in underwater grassbeds without a variance. A group of neighbors objected to the variance, claiming the 214-foot pier and boathouse would interfere with navigation in the channel and would at low tides prohibit access by some property owners to their piers. Apparently, almost every tract of land within the board's jurisdiction had a covered boathouse at the end of a pier. The board granted Chappuis a variance, and the neighbors appealed to court. They claimed Chappuis didn't prove unnecessary hardship and said any hardship that existed was self-created. The court affirmed the board's decision, and the neighbors appealed again. DECISION: Reversed. ChaPpuis didn't deserve a variance. There was no unnecessary hardship. Chappuis wanted to build a covered deck and a boathouse on his property, but he never investigated zoning regulations before he bought the property. Once he learned of the regulations, he didn't seek a variance from the Corps of Engineers or the state environmental regulations governing underwater grassbeds before he sought a variance from the board. Chappuis failed to establish that the zoning restriction limiting piers to 150 feet in length constituted an arbitrary and capricious interference with his property rights. He claimed unnecessary hardship because underwater grassbeds prevented him from building a covered deck and a boathouse within 150 feet of the shore, but he admitted the grassbed problem was not unique to his property. Besides, he already had a conforming 150-foot pier on his property that allowed him to dock his boat. see also: Ex parte Board of Zoning Adjustment of the City of Mobile, 636 So.2d 415 (1994), Ex parte Chapman, 485 So. 2d 1161 (1986). Editor's Note: A dissenting judge believed Chappuis deserved a variance, stating he had to show only that "the plight of the premises in question is unique in that they cannot be put reasonably to a conforming use because of the limitations imposed upon them by reason of their classification in a speci- fied zone." The judge said Chappuis' land was unique because government- protected grassbeds prevented him from building a covered boathouse on his property while almost every other property had a covered boathouse at the end of a pier. Accessory Use m City orders owner to remove dock City of Minnetonka v. Wartman, Court of Appeals of Minnesota, Docket No. C6-97-1291 (1998) In 1990, Wartman bought a Iakefront lot located on a channel that led into Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota. He tore down an old boat dock and built a replacement. There were no other structures on the lot.