Opinion ID: 2161654
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Zoning Violation by Defendants.

Text: We come now to the issue of whether defendants' activities on the south 60 feet of Cities Service's premises violate the zoning-ordinance restrictions applicable to a parking district. In passing on this issue we deem it essential to consider the objective for creating a parking-district-use classification. Obviously it is to provide an area where motorists may park their automobiles while at work, shopping, attending places of entertainment, or ministering to other needs. With our burgeoning population and constantly increasing number of motor vehicles, providing adequate parking space in metropolitan areas presents a serious problem. The queues of automobiles formed to enter the south entrance of the auto laundry pre-empt the parking space available on this south 60 feet and prevent its use for parking purposes. These queues of cars are an integral part of a car laundry which is not a permissible use in a parking district. The circuit court properly held that defendants' operations within the portion of Cities Service's premises so zoned constitutes a zoning-ordinance violation. Cities Service points to the fact that, if the south 60 feet of its premises were to be devoted to use as a parking lot, of necessity there would be movement of cars on the premises in entering, parking, and leaving. Thus it is argued that the moving queues of cars into the auto laundry entails a similar movement of cars. The fallacy of this argument is that in one instance the car movement is incidental to an authorized use while in the other it is incidental to an illegal use. Cities Service also attempts to justify defendants' operations on the south 60 feet by paragraph (1) of sec. 16-7.3 of the city zoning ordinances, which provides: Parking lots shall not be used for automobile repair work or servicing of any kind other than that which may be legally performed on a public street; . . . Because a car owner might clean or wash his car on a public street, or line up on a street to get into an auto laundry, it is contended that the above-quoted provision of the ordinance extends the same uses to land zoned as a parking district. The quoted language is not subject to such a strained interpretation. Obviously it was aimed at preventing a parking lot from being used as an auto repair shop. By permitting those repair and servicing activities which might be legally performed on a public street, the ordinance prohibits all but emergency repair and servicing in a parking district. Nothing beyond this is to be read into the ordinance language by implication.