Agenda - Planning Commission - 07/06/2017

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Zoning Bulletin June 10, 2017 I Volume 11 I Issue 11 tion with a College. Alpha Delta, concluded the court, had "failed to pre- sent any evidence that the fraternity ever operated in a manner which was not 'in conjunction with' [the] College, prior to the adoption of that zoning requirement." "Because Alpha Delta was lawfully operating.a student res- idence 'in conjunction with' the College in 1976, it was not until the Col- lege derecognized the fraternity in 2015 that Alpha Delta's use of the prop- erty violated the Town's zoning requirement that a student residence operate in conjunction with another institutional use." The court also rejected Alpha Delta's argument that term "in conjunc- tion with" was being misconstrued or was an "unconstitutionally vague" term. Finding the phrase "in conjunction with" was not defined in the Ordinance, the court looked to its "plain and ordinary meaning." The court concluded that to meet the Ordinance's requirement that the Fraternity House use as a student residence be "in conjunction with another institu- tional use," Alpha Delta's Fraternity House had to have "some union, as- sociation, or combination with the College." Alpha Delta had maintained that it was still meeting the "in conjunction with an institutional use" requirement of the Ordinance because the residents in the Fraternity House were all students of the College. The court rejected that argument, and concluded that following the College's revocation of its recognition of Alpha Delta as a student organization, Alpha Delta had "no association with the College and thus [was] no longer `operating in conjunction with' the College," and thus was in violation of the zoning Ordinance. Case Note: Irrelevant to the outcome here, the appellate court did 'find that Alpha Delta's use of its property was lawfully nonconforming with respect to the requirement that it obtain a special exception (which it never had), since it was using the property as a student residence prior to enactment of the special exception requirement. Rezoning Town rezones land to open space designation Property owner, who wanted to construct hundreds of residential units on property, argues township's rezoning of land amounts to illegal spot zoning Citation: Golf Enterprises, Inc. v. Newberry Township Board of Supervi- sors, 2017 WL 1465120 (Pa. Comrnw. Ct. 2017) PENNSYLVANIA (04/25/17)—This case addressed the issue of whether a rezoning of land in a Township amounted to invalid spot zoning and/or "arbitrary and irrational" zoning. © 2017 Thomson Reuters