Agenda - Planning Commission - 06/07/2018

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Zoning Bulletin May 25, 2018 I Volume 12 I Issue 10 aging membership found it "extremely difficult" to go outside and manually change the lettering on the old non -digital sign; (2) the larger digital letters allowed the Church to more clearly convey its message and help it recruit new church members; and (3) it showed "economic hardship and `unique factual circumstances' " in that the Church spent more than $11,000 on the digital display because it knew another church in a different city had no issues with such a display upgrade. The court rejected all of the Church's arguments, finding they did not amount to "practical difficulties" in carrying out the church use. The court explained that there were "guidelines" to utilize in consider- ing applications for nonuse variance, which boards of zoning adjust- ment should look to in determining whether practical difficulties have been shown: "(1) how substantial the variation is in relation to the requirement, . . . (3) whether a substantial change will be produced in the character of the neighborhood or a substantial detriment to adjoining properties created, (4) whether the difficulty can be obviated by some method, feasible for the applicant to pursue, other than a variance, and (5) whether in view of the manner in which the difficulty arose and considering all of the above factors the interests of justice will be served by allowing the variance." Here, the court found that the Church's variance requested from the prohibition on digital sign displays in residential zoning districts would not meet the various criteria. The court found the Church's offered reasons for the variance explained the Church's "preference" for the digital sign, but not a "practical difficulty" in carrying out the Church's use of the property as a church. Rejecting the Church's arguments as to "practical difficulty," the court said that the Church: (1) could utilize a younger church member or hire someone to change the non -digital let- tering on the sign; (2) had operated since 1853 without digital lettering; and (3) could not justify the variance because of the unfortunate waste of money caused by the Church's failure to make the expenditure without checking on zoning requirements. See also: Matthew v. Smith, 707S.W.2d 411 (Mo. 1986). See also: Slate v. Boone County Bd. of Adjustment, 810 S.W.2d 361 (Mo. Ct. App. W.D. 1991). Case Note: On appeal, the Church alternatively had asked the court to hold that the por- tion of the City's zoning code prohibiting digital monument signs in residen- tial zones violated the First Amendment by favoring commercial speech over non-commercial speech. The court found that the Church had failed to preserve that claim for appeal. In any case, the court viewed this argument of the Church's as being that: "the zoning code's prohibition against digital signs in residential areas has a disparate impact on churches because the zon- © 2018 Thomson Reuters 5