Agenda - Planning Commission - 05/04/2017

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Zoning Bulletin April 25, 2017 I Volume 11 I Issue 8 The Background/Facts: Todd and Tina Sposato (the "Sposatos") owned property in a residential "R-1" zone in the Town of Hopkinton (the "Town"). The Sposatos owned four alpacas which they kept on their residential property. In May 2011, the Town's Zoning Officer ("ZO") issued to the Sposatos a notice of violation of the Town's Zon- ing Ordinance. The ZO had concluded that the alpacas were "farm animals," which were not permitted in an R-1 zone in the Town. The Sposatos appealed the ZO's notice of violation to the Town's Zoning Board. The Sposatos argued that their alpacas were pets —or domestic animals —which were allowed in an R-1 zone. The Town's Zoning Board agreed, concluding that the alpacas were "domestic animals" permitted in the R-1 zone. However, the Zoning Board imposed four "conditions" on the Sposatos with respect to the continued presence of alpacas on the property, including a condition that "[t]he right to keep alpaca on [that] property does not run with the land; that is, if the Sposato's [sic] sell [their] property the next owners are not permitted to keep alpaca" (the "Condition"). The Sposatos' neighbor, Amber Preston ("Preston"), appealed the Zoning Board's decision. A justice of the Superior Court affirmed the Zoning Board's decision, concluding that "the keeping of alpacas as pets [is] an accessory use in an R-1 zone." Preston again appealed. DECISION: Judgment of superior court quashed, and matter remanded. The Supreme Court of Rhode Island concluded that the Condition imposed by the Zoning Board —that the right to keep alpaca on the property did not run with the land —violated the Zoning Board's author- ity and "settled principles in the law of land use." The court explained that it is "well settled that the law of zoning governs the use of the land itself, not those who occupy it." A zoning authority is not free to impose a condition on the use of land that does not run with the land, said the court. Rather, emphasized the court, zon- ing conditions, which are designed to regulate the land itself, must run with the land and must not be used to regulate the person who is exercising the use or be limited to specific individuals. Accordingly, the court concluded that "the presence of so flawed a condition require[d] that the decision of the [Zoning Board] be vacated." See also: Olevson v. Zoning Bd. of Review of Town of Narragansett, 71 R.I. 303, 44 A.2d 720 (1945). Case Note: In a footnote to its decision, the court noted that the Condition. imposed on the 2017 Thomson Reuters 11