Agenda - Planning Commission - 03/05/2015

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January 25, 2015 1 Volume 9 1 Issue 2 Zoning Bulletin truck stops. It sought to build and operate one of its "Flying J" truck stops on a 10.5 -acre lot in an unincorporated area of Turtlecreek Township in Warren County (the "Property"). The Warren County Rural Zoning Code (the "Code") permitted truck stops in the zoning district in which the Prop- erty was located, subject to "site plan review" by the Warren County Board of County Commissioners ("BOCC"). Pilot filed an application for a site plan review. The BOCC eventually approved the application, subject to 24 enumerated conditions. Pilot, as well as 78 citizens with postal addresses in the County, appealed the BOCC's decision to the Warren County Court of Common Pleas. That court affirmed the BOCC's decision, but struck and modified some of the BOCC's enumerated conditions. Pilot, the BOCC, and 58 of the citizens (the "Residents") all appealed. The Residents challenged the approval of the site plan in general. DECISION: Judgment of court of common pleas affirmed as modi- fied and dismissed in part. As an initial matter, the Court of Appeals of Ohio, Twelfth District, held that the Residents lacked standing to appeal the BOCC's decision ap- proving' the Flying J. Although none of the parties had raised the issue of standing, because standing determined whether the court had jurisdiction in the case, the court addressed the issue. The court explained that one could not appeal an administrative order absent statutory authority. Here, the court found that Ohio statutory law (R.C. Chapter 2506) permitted appeals of a decision of a board of county commissioners only by "those directly affected by the administrative decision." More specifically, the court explained that for a third -party, private property owner—such as the Residents appealing here—to appeal under R.C. 2506.01, the property owner must at a minimum have been "directly affected" by a board's decision and must have "actively partici- pated" in an administrative hearing. The court further explained that the "active -participation" element "requires that the third party must have actively participated in an administrative hearing by attending the hearing personally, or through a representative, and voicing opposition to the proposed property use." Also, the "directly -affected" requirement is met "where the property owner shows some unique harm that is distinct from the harm suffered by the community at large." Here, the court found that although a few of the Residents testified before the BOCC at the hearings, most did not. Moreover, the court also found that none of the Residents who had testified at the BOCC hearings had indicated how they would be uniquely harmed by the proposed travel center. The testimony and briefing all had dealt with harms to the com- munity at large; nowhere did any of the Residents identify any unique harp that he or she would suffer. The court found that there was "simply nothing in the record to even suggest that any of the Residents [would] 6 © 2015 Thomson Reuters