Opinion ID: 1920450
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: IThe Board's Findings Based on Article 10 of SECTION I of the Ordinance

Text: The purported standards of Article 10 of SECTION I relied on by the Board were, [1] . . . desirable for the development of the town . . . [2] will not depart from the intent of the comprehensive plan and this ordinance, . . . [3] . . . not undesirable for the proposed use; and . . . [4] will not abuse the character of the neighborhood, . . . . The presiding Justice held all of them constitutionally defective because he deemed them inadequate as guidelines by which the Board can distinguish between . . . [exceptions] that are undesirable and will abuse the character of the neighborhood and those which will not. We need not reach the constitutional issue thus posited by the presiding Justice since we conclude that the Board's findings predicated on Article 10 of SECTION I of the Ordinance were errors of law for other reasonsas delineated in Phillips Petroleum Company v. Zoning Board of Appeals of the City of Bangor, Me., 260 A.2d 434, 436 (1970). In Phillips, the facts of which are very similar to those before us, the zoning ordinance permitted the operation of gas stations in the Local Business Zone as a conditional use upon approval by the zoning board of appeals. [5] General guidelines such as those provided by Article 10 of SECTION I of the Ordinance here governed board determinations as to such conditional uses. As we clarified in Phillips: . . . by permitting . . . a conditional use within the zone . . . [the ordinance embodies a] legislative determination that such . . . [uses] are not ordinarily detrimental or injurious to the neighborhood within the zone. (emphasis supplied) (p. 435 of 260 A.2d) It is, therefore, a condition precedent to the Board's right to deny a use which has been given a generalized legislative approval that the record before the Board contain significant evidence to constitute a preliminary showing that the proposed use . . . would possess any unique or distinctive characteristics which would serve to differentiate it . . . from any other . . . [such use] in the zone. (p. 436 of 260 A.2d) Hence, our inquiry here becomes directed to whether the record indicates that Community possesses any unique or distinctive characteristics which would serve to differentiate it. . . from any other . . . [school] in the [Residential 2] zone. (p. 436 of 260 A.2d) In its findings concerned with Article 10 of SECTION I of the Ordinance the Board merely parroted the Ordinance language, concluding that the use sought to be authorized was undesirable for the development of the Town, would depart from the intent of the comprehensive plan of . . . [the] Ordinance, was undesirable for the proposed use, and would abuse the character of. . . [the] neighborhood. As we made clear in Phillips, such ultimate characterizations are meaningless, where the Ordinance itself recognizes the use as generally permissible, absent a showing of unique or distinctive characteristics distinguishing the use which the Board would deny in the particular instance from that deemed generally permissible by the Ordinance. Here, the Board's merely conclusory findings provide no such indication, and we find no evidence in the record which could support the requisite finding of unique or distinctive circumstances. Plainly, the size of the Community School (eight students maximum) is not so unmanageable as to be unique or distinctive especially in light of the record showing that the proposed location is within one block of a public school which serves approximately 1,000 pupils. Community's plan contemplates renovation of an existing dwelling and thus raises none of the special issues sometimes attendant upon new construction. The record does contain vague insinuations that students at the present location had misbehaved on past occasions, but no concrete evidence differentiates the discipline problems of Community School from those familiar to all schools. We therefore hold the Board's finding as embodied in the above-designated first (a), (b), (c) and (d), and predicated on Article 10 of SECTION I of the Camden Zoning Ordinance, erroneous as a matter of law because unsupported by evidence.