Note: Decisions of a three-justice panel are not t o be considered as precedent before any tribunal.

ENTRY ORDER

SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2011-112

JULY TERM, 2011

In re Bowen Conditional Use Application } APPEALED FROM: After Remand } } } Superior Court, } Environmental Division } } DOCKET NO. 93-6-10 Vtec

Trial Judge: Merideth Wright

In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

Applicant appeals from an order of the environmenta l division of the superior court denying her application for a conditional use permi t to operate a business on her residential property in the Town of Richford. She contends the court erred in concluding that the proposal

was not an “outdoor recreation” consistent with the purpose of the zoning ordinance. We affirm.

Applicant applied for a permit to operate a busines s on her residential property in the Town’s Conservation 1 zoning district. Applicant d escribed the proposed home-based business as one involving “sifting mine dirt to find gems an d specimens.” She explained that she planned to import mined dirt containing various minerals fr om a gem mine in Maine, sell buckets of dirt to customers, and supply various tools for them to extract the minerals from the dirt including a water recycling sluice. The proposal included a ca nopy, parking area, and port-a-potty.

Applicant sought approval for the project as an “ou tdoor recreation,” one of several conditional uses permitted in the Conservation 1 zo ning district. The zoning bylaw defines “Recreation-Outdoor” as follows: “Includes golf cou rses, golf driving ranges, trap, skeet and archery ranges, swimming pools, skating rinks, tenn is courts, riding stables, recreation stadiums, skiing, campgrounds, boys and girls camps and simil ar places of outdoor recreation.” Town of Richford Zoning Bylaw § 7, at 55 (2005) The Zoning Board of Adjustment denied the application, and applicant appealed to the Environm ental Court. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, and the court issued a writte n decision in November 2010 in favor of the Town. The court denied a subsequent motion to alte r or amend in February 2011. This appeal

followed.

It is axiomatic that our goal in construing a statu te or ordinance is to discern and give effect to the legislative intent, and to this end w e frequently resort to settled rules of constructio n. State v. Ben-Mont Corp., 163 Vt. 53, 57 (1994). “[ W]hen construing an enactment with a series of defining terms, we will apply the rule of ejusde m generis” pursuant to which general terms that follow specific terms “will be construed to in clude only those things similar in character to those specifically defined.” Vt. Baptist Conventio n v. Burlington Zoning Bd., 159 Vt. 28, 30 (1992) (quotation omitted).2

Although the structure of the ordinance in questio n—listing specific outdoor recreational facilities followed by the general provision “and s imilar places of outdoor recreation”—plainly lends itself to application of the rule, applicant maintains that “[t]he listed activities compose such a diverse range of activities that no commonal ity can be found that would distinguish them from the proposed mine dirt sifting operation.” Th e trial court disagreed, as do we. As the Town observes, all of the bylaw’s enumerated venues for “outdoor recreation” facilitate the pursuit or observation of outdoor sports and exercise, from te nnis courts, to campgrounds, to skating rinks and recreational stadiums. The gem-sifting proposa l may be “recreational” in the broad dictionary sense of recreation: “an amusing or stim ulating activity,” Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary 984 (1984), but the general d efinition is narrowed by the specific examples that follow, and the proposed home-busines s plainly falls outside the common theme

that informs them. ∗ Accordingly, we find no grounds to disturb the ju dgment.

Affirmed.

BY THE COURT:

_______________________________________ John A. Dooley, Associate Justice

_______________________________________ Marilyn S. Skoglund, Associate Justice

_______________________________________ Brian L. Burgess, Associate Justice

∗ Although the trial court here found a slightly di fferent common element, involving what it described as use of the natural “topography ” or “natural resource values” of the landscape, PC 26 it is settled that we may affirm a judgment on dif ferent grounds than those on

which trial court relied. See Caledonian-Record P ub. Co. v. Vt. State Colleges, 2003 VT 78, ¶ 7, 175 Vt. 438 (affirming judgment where “[w]e re ach the same result as the trial court but based on different reasoning”).