The applicant proposed to construct a 7,776-square-foot stable, a 16,000-square-foot indoor riding ring, and two outdoor riding rings in an R-1 Residential District. The facilities were intended to be used for the boarding of horses, riding lessons, a summer day-camp, and an annual horse show.  A neighboring landowner challenged the Zoning Hearing Board’s grant of special exception on several grounds, including that the indoor riding arena could not be considered to be an accessory use because it was planned to be much larger in size than the stable. Rejecting this argument, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled that “[t]he size of the structure does not dictate the status as primary or accessory.” The court further found that the facts “support[ed] the conclusion that an indoor riding arena [was] a use …subordinate and „customarily incidental to a stable.” The court rejected all other contentions raised by the neighbor, and the grant of special exception to the stable owner was affirmed.

Tennyson v. Zoning Hearing Board of West Bradford Township, 2008 WL 2415271 (Pa. Commw. June 17, 2008).

The opinion can be accessed at: http://www.courts.state.pa.us/opposting/cwealth/out/1045cd06_6-17-08.pdf

Special thanks to Prof. Anthony Schutz of the University of Nebraska School of Law for forwarding this abstract from the Penn State Dickison School of Law’s Agricultural Law Center.  See,  http://www.dsl.psu.edu/centers/aglaw.cfm.