The plaintiff contracted for the purchase of land conditioned on a special use application approval by the planning and zoning commission. The contract was open for one year, beginning on July 25, 2006, expiring on July 25, 2007. The defendant-appellant argues that the plaintiff was not aggrieved by the denial of the special use application because the purchase and sale agreement for the property in question had expired prior to the plaintiff’s appeal. The appellate court stated that for the trial court to have jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s appeal, the plaintiff would need to show proof of aggrievement in either of two forms, classical or statutory. Classical aggrievement requires that the party must show there was a “specific, personal and legal interest in the subject matter of the decision, as opposed to a general interest that all members of the community share,” and that the decision has injured that interest. . This interest must be maintained, and is not sufficient if the interest is only present at the time of the application. The Court agreed that the plaintiff no longer had such an interest in the property because the contract expired on July 25, 2007 and the appeal was filed on January 6, 2008. Therefore, the court did not have jurisdiction over the claim, since the plaintiff’s interest ceased and he could no longer prove aggrievement.
JZ, Inc., Dunking Donuts v. Planning and Zoning Commission of the Town of East Hartford, 119 Conn. App. 243 (2/9/2010).
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