Opinion ID: 2075219
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Rezoning Argument

Text: Petitioner's second argument, that the Commission's approval of the preliminary application conditioned on a rezoning of a section of the PUD area was in effect a final rezoning, is based on an equal improper understanding of the Zoning Regulations. [11] Petitioner argues that if the preliminary approval coupled with the rezoning condition is, in effect, rezoning, the Commission is required by Zoning Regulation § 9101.42 and D.C.Code 1973, § 5-415, to provide notice and a hearing prior to the preliminary approval. The Commission is required by the Zoning Regulations to designate the appropriate zoning which shall be applicable when necessary in conjunction with a PUD application. § 7501.2. The PUD applicant is then required to submit a rezoning request along with his final request for approval of the PUD. § 9101.3. At this point, the Zoning Regulations specifically and unequivocally trigger the notice and hearing requirement of § 9101.4. Any objections to the rezoning, including matters originally raised in the preliminary hearings, are cognizable at the final approval hearings held on both the PUD application and the rezoning application. Citizens Association of Georgetown v. Board of Zoning Adjustment, D.C.App., 403 A.2d 737, 743 (1979) (approval of campus plan subject to the attack in future hearings on whether particular use is objectionable to neighboring property). Since the PUD use is conditioned on the rezoning application being granted, if the rezoning should fall, then the PUD must fall. The regulations anticipate, rightly so, that issues relevant to the PUD application and the rezoning application are interrelated and, thus must be heard together. Preliminary approval of the PUD application in no way is a manner of short-circuiting the standard procedures for rezoning applications. The nature of the PUD approval process, as well as the plain language of the regulations, demands this procedure. By its very purpose a PUD requires a compromise of interests among developers, business, citizens, and municipality. The rigidity of the zoning regulations bespeaks one result of this compromise on a city-wide basis. On the other hand, the provisions for a PUD contained in the regulations bespeak the willingness of the community to negotiate anew on an ad hoc basis to create a greater good for a smaller sacrifice of desires. It is a powerful tool which provides a forum for various interests which might be competing in order to provide controlled development where none might otherwise take place. As such, the preliminary stage of the PUD proceedings must be open, supple, and unrestricted. If notice and hearing were required during this process for every modification of a use, zone, building height, or floor space in the potential PUD, the procedure would be paralyzed and nothing would be accomplished. The regulatory scheme anticipates this negotiation stage in order to augment and supplement the existing zoning ordinances in the public interest. See Rudderow v. Township of Mt. Laurel, 121 N.J.Super. 409, 412, 297 A.2d 583, 585 (1972). The Commission can only determine the appropriate zoning classification for the PUD after this process is complete because the characteristics of the PUD are, essentially, unknown until the negotiation period is over. The Commission acts as arbitrator of the competing interests in moderating the characteristics of the PUD. The conditions enumerated by the Commission in the preliminary approval are binding on the developer because they are the product of the give and take between the developer and community interests. Only the developer is foreclosed from modifying these conditions at the final hearing. Qualifying parties may continue to attack both the PUD and the rezoning application at the final approval hearings and, if persuasive, defeat the application in toto. [12] We hold that the designation of the appropriate zoning for a PUD contained in the preliminary approval of a PUD application does not act as a final order of rezoning and, consequently, does not require the notice and hearing of either D.C.Code 1973, § 5-415 or Zoning Regulation § 9101.42. [13]