Opinion ID: 1897045
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: whether the plaintiffs were aggrieved by the board's decision

Text: We begin by reviewing the defendants' threshold claim that the trial court improperly determined that the plaintiffs were classically aggrieved by the decision of the board. It is well settled that [p]leading and proof of aggrievement are prerequisites to a trial court's jurisdiction over the subject matter of an administrative appeal. . . . It is [therefore] fundamental that, in order to have standing to bring an administrative appeal, a person must be aggrieved. . . . Standing [however] is not a technical rule intended to keep aggrieved parties out of court; nor is it a test of substantive rights. Rather it is a practical concept designed to ensure that courts and parties are not vexed by suits brought to vindicate nonjusticiable interests and that judicial decisions which may affect the rights of others are forged in hot controversy, with each view fairly and vigorously represented. . . . Aggrievement presents a question of fact for the trial court and the party alleging aggrievement bears the burden of proving it. . . . We do not disturb the trial court's conclusions on appeal unless those conclusions are unsupported by the subordinate facts or otherwise violate law, logic or reason. (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Bongiorno Supermarket, Inc. v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 266 Conn. 531, 537-39, 833 A.2d 883 (2003). The fundamental test for determining [classical] aggrievement encompasses a well-settled twofold determination: [F]irst, the party claiming aggrievement must successfully demonstrate a specific, personal and legal interest in [the challenged action], as distinguished from a general interest, such as is the concern of all members of the community as a whole. Second, the party claiming aggrievement must successfully establish that this specific personal and legal interest has been specially and injuriously affected by the [challenged action]. . . . Aggrievement is established if there is a possibility, as distinguished from a certainty, that some legally protected interest . . . has been adversely affected. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) West Farms Mall, LLC v. West Hartford, 279 Conn. 1, 25, 901 A.2d 649 (2006). The defendants conceded before the trial court that, if the documents establishing the lease arrangement complied with the requirements of the act, then the plaintiffs had established a leasehold interest sufficient to prove that they are classically aggrieved. The defendants contend, however, that Stamford Holdings failed to declare properly the creation of a common interest community, so that any and all documents purporting to grant a lessee interest in the community must be null and void. The defendants' claim requires us to determine whether the declaration creating the West Main & Alvord Commercial Park was properly executed under the act, specifically General Statutes § 47-220(b), [6] which requires that all units in a common interest community be substantially completed at the time of the filing of the declaration. If, as the defendants claim, the declaration could not have been filed until the proposed supermarket was substantially completed, the plaintiffs are not aggrieved, and we have no jurisdiction over this appeal. The defendants' claim with regard to the issue of aggrievement, therefore, turns on our construction of various provisions of the act. Issues of statutory construction raise questions of law, over which we exercise plenary review. See Renaissance Management Co. v. Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, 281 Conn. 227, 231, 915 A.2d 290 (2007). The process of statutory interpretation involves the determination of the meaning of the statutory language as applied to the facts of the case, including the question of whether the language does so apply. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id. When construing a statute, [o]ur fundamental objective is to ascertain and give effect to the apparent intent of the legislature. . . . In other words, we seek to determine, in a reasoned manner, the meaning of the statutory language as applied to the facts of [the] case, including the question of whether the language actually does apply. . . . In seeking to determine that meaning, General Statutes § 1-2z directs us first to consider the text of the statute itself and its relationship to other statutes. If, after examining such text and considering such relationship, the meaning of such text is plain and unambiguous and does not yield absurd or unworkable results, extratextual evidence of the meaning of the statute shall not be considered. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Connecticut Ins. Guaranty Assn. v. State, 278 Conn. 77, 82, 896 A.2d 747 (2006). The following additional facts are relevant to this appeal. The declaration filed by Stamford Holdings included a series of maps of the property, which included a certificate of completion signed by a licensed surveyor, certifying that unit A did not contain any buildings and, therefore, was substantially completed. [7] On January 12, 2005, the plaintiffs recorded an amended declaration and a similar series of maps that included a nearly identical certificate of completion. Section 47-220, which governs the creation of common interest communities, provides that a common interest community may be created only by recording a declaration executed in the same manner as a deed. . . . General Statutes § 47-220(a). The declaration may not be recorded unless all structural components of all buildings containing or comprising any units thereby created are substantially completed in accordance with the plans, as evidenced by a recorded certificate of completion executed by a registered engineer, surveyor or architect. (Emphasis added.) General Statutes § 47-220(b). The defendants argue that the certificate of completion is invalid because the Stop & Shop building was not substantially complete on February 4, 2004; indeed, construction had not even begun at that time. The plaintiffs counter that they complied with the requirements of § 47-220(b) because, as the surveyor stated, unit A did not contain any buildings at the time of its creation, so that it was substantially completed at the time of filing. They also contend that they were not required to file a certificate of completion at all because the West Main & Alvord Commercial Park contains units defined as airspace only, [8] so that no building constructed on the property would ever contain or comprise a unit. The defendants argue in response that the provisions of the act do not allow for the creation of airspace units, which they characterize as a fiction that would permit developers to subvert subdivision regulations and severely limit the ability of towns to regulate development in their borders. We disagree, and conclude that the act allows for the creation of airspace units such as those that form the West Main & Alvord Commercial Park. This dispute requires us to examine for the first time certain provisions of the act, which our legislature first adopted in 1983; Public Acts 1983, No. 83-474; and later amended in 1995. The act is a comprehensive legislative scheme regulating all forms of common interest ownership that is largely modeled on the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act [uniform act], which was most recently amended in 1994. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Weldy v. Northbrook Condominium Assn., Inc., 279 Conn. 728, 735, 904 A.2d 188 (2006). [9] Because only one other state has adopted the 1994 uniform act, [10] other states' case law under the uniform act is of limited value in this case. See, e.g., Evans v. General Motors Corp., 277 Conn. 496, 513-14, 893 A.2d 371 (2006); Connecticut National Bank v. Giacomi, 242 Conn. 17, 34-35, 699 A.2d 101 (1997). This renders the official commentary to the uniform act particularly relevant to our analysis of our state's act because it sheds light on the intent of the commissioners responsible for drafting the provisions that subsequently were adopted by our legislature. See Cantonbury Heights Condominium Assn., Inc. v. Local Land Development, LLC, 273 Conn. 724, 739-40, 873 A.2d 898 (2005); W & D Acquisition, LLC v. First Union National Bank, 262 Conn. 704, 712-13, 817 A.2d 91 (2003). With that background in mind, we first turn to General Statutes § 47-202(26), which defines `[r]eal property' as any leasehold or other estate or interest in, over, or under land, including structures, fixtures, and other improvements and interests that by custom, usage, or law pass with a conveyance of land though not described in the contract of sale or instrument of conveyance. `Real property' includes parcels with or without upper or lower boundaries, and spaces that may be filled with air or water. (Emphasis added.) The same definition appears in § 1-103(26) of the uniform act, which uses the phrase `[r]eal estate.' Unif. Common Interest Ownership Act of 1994, 7 U.L.A. 846 (2005). The official commentary to § 1-103 explains that the definition deliberately is very broad in order to allow for property descriptions that include the third dimension, because [i]n most condominium and planned communities . . . as in so-called `air rights' projects, ownership does not extend `from the center of the earth to the heavens' because units are stacked on top of units or units and common elements are interstratified. In such cases, the upper and lower boundaries must be identified with the same precision as the other boundaries. Id., at 852, comment. In the comments accompanying § 2-109 of the uniform act, which outlines the requirements for plans and surveys of the property that must be filed with the declaration and corresponds to General Statutes § 47-228, the drafters state: [A] condominium or planned community unit may consist of unenclosed ground and/or airspace, with no `building' involved. Id., at 898, comment. We next examine § 47-202(31), which defines `[u]nit' as a physical portion of the common interest community designated for separate ownership or occupancy, the boundaries of which are described pursuant to subdivision (5) of subsection (a) of section 47-224. . . . General Statutes § 47-224(a)(5) provides in relevant part that a declaration of a planned community must contain a description of the boundaries of each unit created by the declaration, including the unit's identifying number. . . . Additionally, General Statutes § 47-221(1), in providing a modifiable standard for determining which parts of a common interest community constitute units and which parts constitute common elements, includes the following language:  If walls, floors or ceilings are designated as boundaries of a unit. . . . (Emphasis added.) Our examination of the Connecticut act and the uniform act, therefore, supports our conclusion that the boundaries of a unit of a common interest community are not limited to walls, ceilings, and floors, but rather indicate that the legislature intended to provide a mechanism for creating units filled with air. Having established that a unit of a common interest community may consist entirely of airspace, we return to the specific language of § 47-220(b), which provides that a declaration may not be recorded unless all structural components of all buildings containing or comprising any units thereby created are substantially completed. . . . (Emphasis added.) This language clearly does not apply to the plaintiffs' arrangement, which is a common interest community composed of airspace units that does not involve buildings containing or comprising units. The plaintiffs, therefore, were not required to file a certificate of completion with their declaration in order to comply with the provisions of the act because the filing requirement on its face applies to more traditional common interest communities, such as those comprised of condominium buildings. [11] In support of their claim that units may not consist solely of airspace, the defendants rely on a recent decision in which the Rhode Island Supreme Court concluded that [a] unit is not created simply by describing a parcel of real estate, whether or not it be airspace only, and designating it as a unit (or a master unit) in a declaration of condominium. America Condominium Assn., Inc. v. IDC, Inc., 870 A.2d 434, 442 (R.I.2005). Unlike Connecticut, however, Rhode Island has not adopted the uniform act, and operates instead under the more restrictive Uniform Condominium Act of 1977 as amended in 1980, 7 U.L.A., Pt. II, p. 199 (1997), which renders inaccurate the defendants' characterization of our sister state's statute as virtually identical legislative language. . . . Moreover, the Rhode Island decision was based on the laws in place in 1988, the year in which the master declaration at issue in that case was filed. America Condominium Assn., Inc. v. IDC, Inc., supra, at 436. As our sister court notes in its opinion, the Rhode Island Condominium Act was amended in 1991 to include language permitting the creation of condominiums containing land-only units, which would have provided defendants with a novel opportunity to create units without having commenced the construction of any buildings. Id., at 441 n. 5. The defendants' reliance on this decision is, therefore, misplaced. Accordingly, we conclude that the act allows for the creation of common interest communities consisting entirely of airspace units. With such a community, the requirement of substantial completion simply is inapplicable, and the declaration may be filed prior to any anticipated construction of buildings within the unit. Therefore, the trial court properly concluded that the plaintiffs were aggrieved by the board's decision.