Case Title: Horton v. Town of Casco

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2013-12-19T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
 
 
 
    Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2013 ME 111 
Docket: 
Cum-12-435 
Argued 
November 21, 2013 
Decided: 
December 19, 2013 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, LEVY, SILVER, MEAD, GORMAN, and 
JABAR, JJ. 
 
 
WILLIAM A. HORTON et al. 
 
v.  
 
TOWN OF CASCO et al. 
 
 
MEAD, J. 
 
[¶1]  William A. Horton appeals from a judgment of the Superior Court 
(Cumberland County, Cole, J.) affirming the Town of Casco Zoning Board of 
Appeals (ZBA), which upheld the Town of Casco Planning Board’s approval of 
AT&T Mobility’s application to build a wireless communications tower.  On 
appeal, Horton argues that a lease agreement between AT&T and Shellie and 
Robert Symonds creates a new lot that does not meet the minimum space and 
setback requirements of articles 8.8.1(d)(4) and 4.4.2(C) of the Town of Casco’s 
Zoning Ordinance.  Because we conclude that the lease does not create a new lot 
and that the setback requirements of article 8.8.1(d)(4) have been satisfied, we 
disagree and affirm the judgment. 
 
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I.  BACKGROUND 
 
 
[¶2]  Article 6.3.2(A)(2) of the Zoning Ordinance requires the ZBA to act in 
an appellate capacity.  Therefore, we review the decision of the Planning Board as 
the operative decision.  See Mills v. Town of Eliot, 2008 ME 134, ¶ 14, 
955 A.2d 258. 
[¶3]  On February 8, 2010, the Symondses executed a lease agreement 
granting AT&T the right to use a 100-square-foot portion of their property in 
Casco to build a wireless communications tower.  Shortly thereafter, AT&T 
submitted an application to the Planning Board seeking approval for the tower 
construction project.  On January 11, 2011, the Planning Board determined that the 
standards contained in the Zoning Ordinance had been satisfied and approved 
AT&T’s application. 
[¶4]  Horton, along with Brian and Theresa Cosgrove, appealed the Planning 
Board’s decision to the ZBA.  Horton argued that (1) the lease violated both local 
and state subdivision regulations, (2) the lease violated the minimum lot size 
requirements of article 4.4.2(C) of the Zoning Ordinance, and (3) the Planning 
Board failed to adequately address a shared right-of-way to access the leased land 
and other concerns.  The ZBA concluded that (1) it had no jurisdiction to hear the 
subdivision arguments, (2) there was no violation of article 4.4.2(C) of the Zoning 
 
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Ordinance and (3) the board did not err in reviewing the right-of-way or other 
concerns, and affirmed the decision of the planning board. 
[¶5]  Following the ZBA’s decision, Horton appealed to the Superior Court 
pursuant to M.R. Civ. P. 80B.  In addition to the arguments he made before the 
ZBA, Horton also argued that article 4.4.2(B) did not allow for the development of 
cellular towers in a residential zone and renewed his contention that the proposed 
tower setback violates article 8.8.1(d)(4).  After Horton filed his appeal, AT&T 
requested and was granted leave to intervene in the Superior Court matter. 
[¶6]  The court determined that Horton was required to appeal the Planning 
Board’s decisions concerning the subdivision ordinance directly to the Superior 
Court, not to the ZBA.  Because the 80B petition was filed after the deadline to 
appeal the Planning Board decision had passed, the court dismissed Horton’s 
subdivision arguments.  The court also concluded that the lease agreement did not 
create a new and separate lot, accepting AT&T’s argument that a legal interest was 
transferred but that no land was split off.  It therefore determined that AT&T’s 
application satisfied the Zoning Ordinance.  The court did not find merit in 
Horton’s other arguments and affirmed the ZBA’s decision.  This appeal followed.   
II.  DISCUSSION 
 
 
[¶7]  On appeal, Horton argues that both statute and case law require us to 
find that the lease created a new lot, and that AT&T’s application violates 
 
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articles 4.4.2(C) and 8.8.1(d)(4) of the Zoning Ordinance.  He has abandoned the 
other challenges to the Planning Board’s decision that he made before the ZBA and 
the Superior Court.  In support of his argument, he urges us to use the language of 
30-A M.R.S. § 4401(4) (2012), a subdivision regulation statute that allows new 
lots to be created by lease, as a guide for determining when a new lot is created.  
The subdivision regulation, however, does not control or apply to the operative 
terms of the Zoning Ordinance.  Further, a determination that the lease does or 
does not create a new lot will resolve only the question of whether AT&T’s 
application violates article 4.4.2(C) of the zoning ordinance; the operation of 
article 8.8.1(d)(4) raises a different question requiring a separate analysis.  The 
interpretation of a local ordinance by a planning board is reviewed de novo.  
JPP, LLC v. Town of Gouldsboro, 2008 ME 194, ¶ 8, 961 A.2d 1103. 
A. 
Article 4.4.2(C) of the Town of Casco Zoning Ordinance  
 
[¶8]  Article 4.4.2(C) requires all lots in residential zones to meet a 
minimum lot size of 80,000 square feet.1  Because the leased 100-square-foot area 
does not meet this requirement, if the lease does, as Horton argues, create a new 
lot, AT&T’s application does not conform to the Zoning Ordinance. 
                                         
1  The Symondses’ property is located in a residential zone. 
 
 
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[¶9]  The creation of a new lot requires the “splitting off” of a legal interest 
of “sufficient dignity.”  Town of York v. Cragin, 541 A.2d 932, 934 (Me. 1988).  
We have recognized that a lease may be used to create a new lot.  Bakala v. Town 
of Stonington, 647 A.2d 85, 87-88 (Me. 1994).  A lease, however, is capable of 
transferring a broad range of legal interests, and it is the nature of the transferred 
interests, not the type of contract or instrument facilitating the transfer, that will 
determine whether a new lot is created. 
[¶10]  In Town of Arundel v. Swain, we held that the right to use campsites 
for a limited period of time did not create new lots.  374 A.2d 317, 319 (Me. 1977).  
Instead, we analogized the interest in the campsites as “akin to the renting or 
occupying of space in an exhibition hall, a parking lot, or a drive-in theater.”  Id. at 
320.  Although we noted that the campsites were “somewhat parceled off, [with] 
each customer being given a certain space to occupy for a certain period of time,” 
we ultimately concluded that the campground was a single tract of land, and that 
the campsites were not individual lots.  Id. at 320-21. 
[¶11]  When the interest transferred is more permanent, we have held that 
the transfer does create a new lot.  For example, in Planning Bd. of Town of Naples 
v. Michaud, we determined that a developer’s sale of timeshares in spaces to park 
recreational vehicles were easily distinguishable from the temporally limited 
interests in Swain, and concluded that the conveyance of an “indefinite fee interest 
 
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in a unique and identifiable parcel of land,” did create a new lot.  444 A.2d 40, 43 
(Me. 1982). 
 
[¶12]  AT&T does not have exclusive rights to the leased property as the 
purchasers in Michaud did, nor was its interest conveyed in a fee, or recorded in a 
deed or other public record.  Instead, AT&T merely has the right to use and occupy 
a certain space for a finite period of time, and for the specific and limited purpose 
of building a wireless communications tower.  This legal interest, which resembles 
a license, is not sufficient to create a new lot under the Zoning Ordinance, article 2 
of which defines a lot as “[a] parcel of land having distinct and defined boundaries 
and described in a deed, plan or similar legal document.”2 
[¶13]  Because the lease does not create a new lot, the relevant dimensions 
for the purposes of the Zoning Ordinance are those of the Symondses’ property, 
which easily satisfy the lot size requirements of article 4.2.2(C). 
B. 
Article 8.8.1(d)(4) of the Town of Casco Zoning Ordinance  
 
[¶14]  Article 8.8.1(d)(4) requires “[t]he center of the tower base [to] be set 
back from the property line by a distance of at least one-hundred (100%) percent of 
the total tower height.”  To decide whether the setback in AT&T’s application 
                                         
2  At least one court has come to a similar conclusion.  See Global Tower, LLC v. Hamilton Twp., 
897 F. Supp. 2d 237, 245, 256-58 (M.D. Pa. 2012) (holding that a similar lease agreement to install a 
communications tower inside a 100-square-foot area with a lease term of five years did not create a new 
lot or trigger the application of the bulk regulation requirements). 
 
 
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satisfies this requirement, we must determine whether the term “property line,” 
from which the setback is measured, refers to the property line described in the 
application—the 
Symondses’ 
property 
line—or 
the 
boundary 
of 
the 
100-square-foot leased area, as Horton argues.  Because the height of AT&T’s 
proposed tower is 150 feet, if the borders of the 100-square-foot leased area are 
considered the property lines instead of the borders of the Symondses’ lot, AT&T’s 
application will be in violation of article 8.8.1(d)(4).  Contested language in a 
zoning ordinance “must be construed reasonably and with regard to both the 
ordinance’s specific object and its general structure.”  Town of Union v. Strong, 
681 A.2d 14, 18 (Me. 1996). 
[¶15]  AT&T’s application to the Planning Board consistently references the 
Symondses’ property, not the leased 100-square-foot leased area, as the property 
upon which the proposed tower will be built.  The Symondses are listed as the 
owners on the application, their warranty deed is included as evidence of right or 
title to the proposed building site, and the proposal site plan shows their property 
lines clearly delineated as the benchmark from which the one-hundred-percent 
setback is measured. 
[¶16]  In a case such as this one, where the property within the 
one-hundred-percent setback zone is wholly owned by the property owner listed in 
the application, the issue is not the size of the area subject to a lease with the 
 
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owner, but rather the entirety of the owner’s property upon which the tower is 
located.  This result is consistent with the obvious legislative objective of the 
Zoning Ordinance for wireless communications towers—in the event of a tower 
failure, it cannot fall upon any property other than that of the owner under any 
circumstance.  That objective is met here because the application places the 
proposed tower 213 feet from the Symondses’ property line at minimum, well 
within the one-hundred-percent setback required by article 8.8.1(d)(4).3 
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
________________________________________ 
On the briefs and at oral argument: 
Erika L. Frank, Esq., Law Office of Erika L. Frank, Windham, for appellants 
William A. Horton, Brian A. Cosgrove, and Theresa E. Cosgrove 
 
Barry J. Hobbins, Esq., Law Office of Barry J. Hobbins, P.A., Saco, for 
appellee AT&T Mobility LLC 
 
The Town of Casco joined in the brief of AT&T Mobility, LLC 
 
 
 
Cumberland County Superior Court docket number AP-11-36 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY 
 
                                         
3  Requirements that mandate a tower be set back at least one hundred percent of its height are often 
included in zoning ordinances to prevent towers from being constructed in locations where it could fall 
onto other structures.  See generally, Robert Long, Allocating the Aesthetic Costs of Cellular Tower 
Expansion: A Workable Regulatory Regime, 19 Stan. Envtl. L.J. 373, 392-93 (2000) (describing how 
concerns of tower failure are met with zoning ordinances requiring a one-hundred-percent setback).