PA Appeals Court Holds Landowners were Deprived of a Full and Fair Opportunity to Present Their Request for a Variance

This post was authored by Matthew Loeser, Esq.

 

Landowners Dale DeAngelo and Lesley DeAngelo owned a two-acre property in the R-3 High Density Residential Zoning District located in North Strabane Township. The North Strabane Township Zoning Ordinance allowed a medical clinic as a conditional use in this district as long as it is “established in conjunction with, part of and adjacent to an assisted living facility, independent living facility, life care community or nursing home.” Landowners challenged this section of the Zoning Ordinance as impermissibly restrictive. The Zoning Board voted to uphold the Zoning Ordinance and deny Landowners’ request for a variance. The trial court affirmed the Zoning Board’s decision, concluding that the Zoning Ordinance was not de jure exclusionary because it permitted a medical clinic as a conditional use in an R-3 District, and stand-alone medical clinics in the C-1 and C-2 Districts.

 

On appeal, the landowners contended that the conditions for a medical clinic in an R-3 District constitute de facto exclusionary zoning. Landowners further argued that no property in the R-3 District was large enough to accommodate a clinic and assisted living facility, which made Section 1303.34(B) of the Zoning Ordinance exclusionary. The court found that the Zoning Ordinance did not prohibit medical clinics throughout the municipality; instead, it permitted stand-alone medical clinics in C-1 and C-2 Districts. Thus, Section 1303.34(B) did not effect a total prohibition of stand-alone medical clinics, and the court rejected Landowners’ contention that the Zoning Ordinance was exclusionary. Next, landowners argued that Section 1303.34(B) was arbitrary and unreasonable because it did not advance the purpose of the R-3 District. Here, the stated purpose of the district was to preserve the residential character of the neighborhood and to limit the uses “to complement these existing neighborhoods, with accessory uses that will not detract from the residential character.” As the Zoning Ordinance was found to be rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose, the court held that the landowners failed to satisfy their “heavy burden of establishing the invalidity” of the Zoning Ordinance.

 

Landowners next claimed that the Zoning Board denied them a full and fair opportunity to present their case in support of their variance request. Specifically, they alleged that they requested a dimensional variance, as opposed to a use variance in which “strict ‘unnecessary hardship’ standards” would apply. Here, however, landowners were not seeking a “reasonable adjustment from area and space requirements” but, instead, to use their property for a stand-alone medical clinic, which was prohibited by the Zoning Ordinance unless the requirements in Section 1303.34(B) were met. The court found that the conditional language in Section 1303.34(B) had nothing to do with “lot width, building area, setbacks and impervious surface limitations.” As such, it concluded that landowners’ requested departure from the condition in Section 1303.34(B) of the Zoning Ordinance required a use variance, and affirmed the Zoning Board’s holding to this claim.

 

Lastly, Landowners contended that the Zoning Board denied their request for a variance without taking any evidence. The record reflected that although the Zoning Board held a hearing on September 6, 2017, it did not take testimony or evidence. Additionally, following the hearing, the landowners submitted a legal memorandum, which addressed their interpretation of the Zoning Ordinance but not their variance request. Again, the Zoning Board did not receive any testimony or evidence at any point prior to denying landowners’ request for a variance. The court found that this was in error because landowners were entitled to a full and fair opportunity to present their request for a variance, as guaranteed to them by Section 1807 of the Zoning Ordinance. Accordingly, the court vacated the trial court’s decision affirming the Zoning Board’s denial of the variance.

 

 

DeAngelo v. North Strabane Township Zoning Hearing Board, 2019 WL 1645280 (PA Commwlth 4/17/2019)