Agenda - Planning Commission - 09/06/2007

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Zoning Bulletin tion, the board determined that Lots 2 and 3 did not meet the minimum building siTe size requirement. Doyle comested the board's interpretation of the regulations, and, al- ternatively, . requested that the minimum building site size requirement be waived. The board granted Doyle's request to waive the size require- ments for LaI 2 because it "just fell short of compliance." However, the board denied the waiver for Lot' 3 because it had only aboUT half of the required area. Doyle appealed the decision to court. Following a hearing on the merits, the lower court reversed the board's decision that Doyle's pro- posed lots did not meet the minimum building site size requirement. The board appealed, arguing that Doyle's proposed lots did not meet subdi- vision requirements. Decision: Reversed. The interpretation of subdivision regulations was a legal question that the appeals court had to review as if hearing the facts for the first time, and Ihe court was not bound by the interpretation of the plan- ning board. If there was no ambiguity in the regulations in question, the words and phrases of the regulations had to be construed according to the common and approved usage of the language. The relevant subdivision provision required each lot 1:0 meet minimum total size requirements, but also to "contain within the required lot size a minimum building site of 30,000 contiguous square feet" that met cer- tain conditions. A "building site," was defined as: "[t]hat portion of a lot, tran or parcel of land upon wbich a single building [was) placed." The ordinance defined a setback as that area between the property litle and a line runnin.g parallel to it that "shall contain no strucmres," and the ordinance defined structures as: "[a)nything construcTed or erected with a fixed location on the ground or attached to sometbing having a fixed location on the ground." Therefore, because a setback could not be an area where a building or other structure was placed, it could not be part of a "building site" as defined in the regulations. The appeals court found that, because setbacks are excluded from the definition of "building site," the area covered by setbacks could not be included when calculating whether a proposed building site met the minimum building sile size requirement. Despite reack""lg this same conclusion, the lower court reversed the board's ruling, finding that the regulation was both absurd and served no legitimate land use purpose. However, the appeals court disagreed with this finding. As to whether the regulation serves a legitimate land use purpose, state law permitted the adoption of subdivision regulations that served various goals. Here, the 1:Own's requirement that lots have a certain 8 132