Agenda - Planning Commission - 06/02/1998

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Page 6 -- May 25, 1998 Z.B. Nevertheless, the board should have allowed Tartan to use part of its gas station as a convenience store. There was no evidence the proposed change would result in increased traffic. Because the zoning code expressly allowed any retail sales establishments in the district, the board had no choice but to conclude that the convenience store would be more in character with uses allowed in that district. The zoning code didn't prohibit Tartan from combin- ing conforming and nonconforming uses o'f the same property, and didn't require board approval for changing a nonconforming use to a conforming use. see also: Allen v. Adami, 347 N. E. 2d 890. Code Violation ,, Court seeks to jail owner for zoning code violations Citation: City of Dayton v. Haddix, Court of Appeals of Ohio, Second Appellate District, Montgomery County, C.A. No. 16675 (1998) Haddix owned property in the city of Dayton, Ohio. According to the city, Haddix's property had a number of zoning violations. On May 13, 1996, Haddix was convicted of zoning violation charges. The .court sentenced Haddix to 60 days in jail and fined him $500. The jail time and fine were suspended on the condition that Haddix make the necessary repairs to his property within 90 days. The court put Haddix on unsupervised probation for one year. In October 1996, the city asked the court to revoke Haddix's probation and re-impose the suspended sentence. On Nov. 26, the court imposed the 60-day jail term it had previously suspended. The court's order was apparently never enforced, for unknown reasons. In April 1997, the court ordered Haddix to appear on May 14 to prove that he made the necessary repairs and cleanup actions on his property. The court held a hearing in June and found Haddix failed to comply with its cleanup orders. The court again revoked Haddix's probation and said if he didn't demolish his property within 35 days, he would have to serve his sentence. Haddix appealed, claiming the court had no right to revoke his probation once his probation period ended. Under state law, a court that suspended a criminal sentence could put the defendant on probation for up to five years to ensure the defendant complied with the court's conditions. The law stated that at the end of the probation period, the court lost its authority to impose a sentence on the defendant. DECISION: Reversed. The court should not have revoked Haddix's probation. It no longer had the authority to do so. The court suspended the execution of Haddix's sentence and imposed a one-year term of probation in May 1996. That meant the court had no authority to revoke Haddix's probation and re-impose his sentence when it did so in June 1997. The court's authority over Haddix ended when his probationary period ended a month earlier.