Agenda - Planning Commission - 08/06/1996

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deemed a sign or not, it is entirely inappropriate and out of harmony for the area and Village." The Flickeys kept the painting. The village sued, asking the court to, among other things, order the Hickeys to remove the paint from the boulder. It asked for judgment without a trial on the paint-removal issue, which the court granted. The court found the painting .was a sign, and that to find otherwise would defeat the ordinance's attempts to regulate signs. The Hickeys appealed. ~DECISION: Reversed. The lower court improperly granted the village judgment without a trial. The village's case regarding paint removal was dismissed. .4 boulder was not a structure and the shamrock was not a sign. The ordi- nance had to be interpreted strictly and literally. Because the ordinance sought ~to limit the way people used their property, its restrictions had to be enforced ~ as written. Amy ambiguities had to be interpreted in the landowners' favor. The shamrock was not illegal simply because it was inappropriate. Merritt Hill Vineyards v. Windy Heights Vineyard, 472 N.Y.S. 2d 592. Triborough Bridge and TunnelAuthority v. B. C~Tystal & Son, 253 N. Y.S. 2d 387. Mobile Homes. Developer and city quibble over statute's : meaning of 'generally' Ettinger ~. City of Lansi~g, 546 N. W. 2d 652 (Michigan) 2996 Originally, part of Michigan's Mobile Home Commission Act stated local governments could not design ordinances that were "exclusionary to mobile homes generally." The statute was later changed to read local ordinances could inot be "exclusionary to mobile homes generally whether the mobile homes are ~ located inside or outside of mobile home parks." : Ettinger and Rinvelt (developers) wanted to develop a mobile-home park : on residential-zoned property they owned in Lansing, Mich. The city's zoning ordinance allowed individual mobile homes in residential zones, but not mobile- homeparks. Mobile-home parks were allowed only in "DM-l" zones, and then only with a special-use permit. The developers asked the city to rezone their property to DM-1 and then issue them a special-use permit. The city denied their requests. The developers prepared a revised plan for their park that would have met all the residential- : zone requirements (i.e., tot area, number of homes per lot), except that it was : still a park -- not individual homes. They never presented the plan to the city : because they believed doing so would be futile. The developers sued the qity. They claimed the zoning ordinance violated :the state Mobile Home Commission Act because it did not allow mobile-home iparks in residential districts, even when a park's site plan met all the district's requirements. The city asked for judgment without a trial.