Opinion ID: 2200259
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Area Regulations.

Text: 1. LOT AREA. Each building hereafter erected or altered in the Residence District shall provide a lot with area dimensions conforming with the minimum requirements hereafter described, and no building shall hereafter be erected on a lot area smaller than prescribed herein. (See Section 1, Paragraph 7.) No lot area shall be so reduced or diminished that the yards or open spaces shall be smaller than prescribed by this ordinance. 2. SE ACK. There shall be a setback line of not less than twenty feet from the street line provided that when a majority of the buildings built on one side of a street between two intersecting streets at the time of the passage of this ordinance shall have been built with a minimum setback of more or less than twenty feet from the street line no building hereafter erected or altered shall project beyond the minimum setback line so established. [Emphasis added.] It is apparent that the text alone does not provide a plain language meaning of front setback line, as it might, for example, if ¶ 7 of § 10 did not use the word front, or if ¶ (B)2 of § 3 used the words front setback line rather than street line. When there is no readily apparent meaning to a statutory phrase, we ordinarily turn to an attempt to determine the intent of the legislative body that enacted the statute or ordinance. However, the arsenal of aids sometimes available to help establish legislative intent is not at hand in the instant case. We have no legislative history to consider. Further, most of the canons of construction are not appropriate to aim at this relatively simple target. Faced with such limitations in our consideration of the Michiana ordinance, we make two preliminary assumptions. First, we assume that the village intended to accomplish what municipalities generally intend to accomplish by adopting a setback provision: to establish a buffer zone between buildings and the street. [28] Second, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we assume that the village did not intentionally adopt an idiosyncratic meaning for setback, a term that is common to zoning ordinances. As we see it, to interpret front setback line as the street line of a lot would clearly attribute to the phrase an idiosyncratic meaning. It would be conceptually awkward, at best, to describe a line that is not set back from anything as the front setback line. Defendant's explanation that the front setback line is the front of a setback area, the backside of which is the front of the proposed building, does nothing to dispel our sense that such an interpretation turns the common-sense understanding of set back on its head. This is particularly true when the ordinance also contains a provision calling for a minimum setback of 20 feet from the street. Moreover, defendant's conventional use of the word setback in the ordinance as a whole supports the conclusion that a different, idiosyncratic meaning was not intended in the phrase front setback line. Defendant's ordinance is ambiguous in the sense that its meaning is not readily apparent, but it is not so ambiguous that it can accommodate the meaning attributed to it by defendant. Our examination of the ordinance convinces us that plaintiff and the Court of Appeals are correct in concluding that defendant's interpretation is not reasonable. Deference to a local zoning board may require a court to defer to the board's choice of a particular shade of gray to define an ambiguous reference to gray, but it does not require us to endorse a board's insistence that black means white. Our conclusion is reinforced by the fact that defendant's interpretation of front setback line has been something of a moving target. We agree with the Court of Appeals that on this record defendant did not establish by competent, material, and substantial evidence that a longstanding practical or common interpretation consistent with its claim existed in fact. Finding that no practical or common construction was consistently given to the phrase front setback line over an extended period of time by the officer or agency charged with administration of the ordinance, we apply the review standard suggested by our decision in Paye, supra . After according respectful consideration to the construction given the ordinance by the board, we conclude that there are cogent reasons for overturning the board's decision.