Court Opinion

ID: 9762448
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:24:18.408987+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:34.616730
License: Public Domain

FLAHERTY, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. Prior to making a conveyance in lieu of condemnation, appellant maintained as a pre-existing non-conforming use the bungalows in question, upon the same forty acre tract of land as he now seeks to maintain them. Appellant has not sought to move the bungalows to another tract of land, and, indeed, the structures themselves are the very same ones that have at all relevant times been upon the forty acre tract. Appellant does not even seek to expand the non-conforming use, by enlarging the number or size of the bungalows. Rather, appellant seeks only to continue the very same use that has always been allowed as a non-conforming use upon the tract in question, by simply relocating the situs of the use upon the same tract. To deny the continued use of the land in this manner is to too narrowly construe the landowner’s constitutional right to maintain land uses that existed prior to enactment of the zoning ordinance. I would, therefore, reverse the order of the Commonwealth Court, and order that the zoning permit in question be issued.
LARSEN and PAPADAKOS, JJ., join this dissenting opinion.