Agenda - Planning Commission - 10/01/1996

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z,.D. [ ~eptemt)er 1996-- Page able locations in the city for new adult uses. According to the city's zoning adminiStrator, his office received about 4 or 5 inquiries per year concerning possible adult uses. There was no evidence anyone had attempted to open an adult use but was prevented from doing so by the ordinance. DECISION: Affirmed. The city's ordinance was constitutional. The amount of acreage made available for adult uses was, by' itself, irrel- evant. The Constitution does not mandate that any minimum percentage of land be:made available for certain types of speech only that zoning schemes provide a "reasonable opportunity" to disseminate the speech at issue. There apparently was ample space available for new adult uses, and, as the court noted, "there [was] no indication that the Chicago population [was] having any difficulty receiving this product." YoUng v. American Mini Theatres, 427 U.S. 50, 96 S. Ct. 2440, 49 L.Ed. 2d 310. Williams v. City of Bloomington, 247 N. E. 2d 446 (1969). Home Business -- Board of Adjustment appeals reversal of its own decision In the Matter of St. Tamknny Parish Board of Adjustments Case No. 10-94, 676 So.2d 119 (Louisiana) 1996 Sapp wanted to set up a Professional office in her home in St. Tammany Parish, La. As required by the parish's zoning ordinance, she applied to the Parish's' Police Jury, Department of Development, for an administrative per- mit. The department denied her application. Sapp appealed to the parish's Board of Adjustment, which affirmed the denial and told Sapp to apply for a conditional-use permit. Sapp asked a court to review the board's decision. After hearing testimony, the court reversed and granted Sapp the permit. The board appealed.- Sapp asked the court to dismiss the board's appeal, saying the board had no legal interest in preserving its decision. Therefore, she argued, the board had no rightI to appeal. DECISION: Motion to dismiss board's appeal granted. Because the board had no right to appeal the lower court's decision, Sapp's motion to dismiss the appeal was granted. As mandated by state law, the board wasn't a party to Sapp's case and had no interest in the outcome. The board was an administrative agency that made a judicial-type decision. It had no right to appeal the lower court's overturning of its decision, just as a lower court's judge would have no right to appeal an appeals court's decision. River Oaks-Hyman Place Homeowners Civic Association v. City of New Orleans, 281 So.2d 293 (1973). State ex rel. Bringhurst v. Zoning Board of Appeal and Adjustment, 4 So.2d 820 (1941).