Agenda - Planning Commission - 03/05/2015

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January 10, 20151 Volume 9 I Issue 1 Zoning Bulletin for the daily local retail business needs of the residents of the local- ity only." (C.C.O. 343.01(a).) In October 2010, the Clinic filed an application with the City's Department of Building and Housing seeking approval of three construction projects for the Hospital, including the construction of a helipad on the roof of a proposed two-story addition. The City rejected the Clinic's application for the helipad, citing C.C.O. 343.01(b)(8), which provides that "accessory uses" are allowed "only to the extent necessary normally accessory to the limited types of neighborhood service use permitted under this division." Thus, the City rejected the Clinic's assertions that a helipad was a permit- ted use for property within a Local Retail Business District. The Clinic appealed to the City's Board of Zoning Appeals (the "BZA"). Among other things, testimony at the hearing established that nearly 88% of hospitals in and around the City had helipads. It also made clear that a helicopter significantly reduced transportation time for critically ill patients. Ultimately, the BZA determined that a helipad was not "an acces- sory use authorized as of right." Citing C.C.O. 343.01(b)(8), the court said this was because "those uses that the Zoning Code characterizes as retail businesses for local or neighborhood needs would not involve a helip[ad] as normally required for the daily lo- cal retail business needs of the residents of the locality." The Clinic appealed the BZA's denial of the helipad. The court of common pleas reversed. The court pointed to C.C.O. 343.01(b)(1), which provides that with limited exceptions, all uses permitted in the Multi -Family District are also permitted in the Local Retail Busi- ness District. The common pleas court looked at other provisions of the C.C.O. and concluded that a helipad was "customarily incident to" a hospital and therefore qualified as an "accessory use." The court reasoned that "hospitals and their accessory uses are expressly permitted in the City's Multi -Family District, and are therefore permissible in the City's areas that are zoned `Local Retail Business District.' " The common pleas court concluded that because the "record before [the court]" established that a helipad qualified as an "accessory use" in a Multi -Family District, it was "therefore permis- sible in the instant case." The BZA appealed. The appellate court reversed. The appellate court held that since the BZA reasonably relied on the code provision—C.C.O. 343.01(b)(8)—in its decision, its determination should hold so long as its decision was "not unconstitutional, ille- gal, arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, or unsupported by the 6 © 2015 Thomson Reuters