Agenda - Planning Commission - 06/03/1997

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Z.B. May 25, 1997 - Page 5 . The board said it was merely protecting public welfare and safety, and asked the appeals court to reinstate the original condition. Snider argued the condition was unreasonable, because it imposed requirements beyond his control and basically gave adjoining landowners the power to veto his project. He argued the requirement amounted to a taking because he did not have the power to obtain property rights from third parties. DECISION: Reversed in part. The condition the. board tried to impose on Snider was not arbitrary and capricious. Even if the condition was unreasonable, the trial court did not have the authority to modify it. The right to impose the condition belonged to the board, so the court couldn't usurp the board's power. The trial court was correct, however, in its assessment that Two Acre Lane was not fit to support the development. Only 12 feet wide, the road was not large enough to sustain even a small increase in traffic,. even if most of the subdivision's residents used the highway instead. Therefore, the board's original condition had to be reinstated. As for Snider's claim of a taking, he had to show that the board's condition fundamentally deprived him of ownership or prevented him from making economically viable use of the property. Snider did not prove he was deprived of this use. The condition may have thwarted Snider's best economic option for the land, but that was not enough to constitute a taking. The land was zoned agricultural-rural, so Snider had other options for developing the land. 5'-1 Conditional Use - Developer says sketches of plan are sufficient for permit request Wade v. Town of Ayden, 482 S.E.2d 44 (North Carolina) 1997 In 1995, Parrott applied for final approval for a conditional use permit. He planned to build a 136-unit, multifamily housing development in the town of Ayden, N.C. . In his application, Parrott included a traffic study and made several statements that the developm~nt complied with the town's regulations, standards . and general plan. Parrott apparently also submitted a sketch plan and maps of the project. To receive approval for a project, an applicant had to include site plans and be prepared to provide a full explanation of the proposed use, including its location, appearance and operational characteristics. According to the town's zoning ordinance, an applicant could either request preliminary approval first or request final approval without getting preliminary approval beforehand. The purpose of the preliminary stage was to allow the applicant to submit less detailed plans; if the applicant went directly to the final approval stage, it had to submit complete plans. Parrott never applied for preliminary approval. During the board's hearings, an engineering expert testified the plans were incomplete and lacked several elements, including any plans for "water, sewer,