Court Opinion

ID: 9648574
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:27:56.835458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:03.310138
License: Public Domain

Alcorn, C. J.
(dissenting in part). I agree with the majority opinion insofar as it concludes that the change of zone can be sustained. Although the language and reasoning used in the decision announced by the planning and zoning commission indicates that it was influenced, in granting the change of zone, by the conditions which it subsequently attached to the grant of the special permit, nevertheless the factors favorably determined by the commission aside from those conditions were sufficient to justify the change of zone.
*313I disagree with the majority opinion, however, in its departure from our settled rule most recently restated in Stiles v. Town Council, 159 Conn. 212, 268 A.2d 395, namely, that commission action which is dependent for its proper functioning on action by other agencies over which the commission has no control is improper unless the necessary action appears to be a probability. There was nothing presented to the commission from which it could properly conclude that it was reasonably probable that any of the several governmental agencies which would be affected by the off-site conditions imposed would collaborate in making them effective.
A reason for and the soundness of our rule is demonstrated in the present case. One of the off-site conditions imposed upon the granting of the special permit in this case is that “F.A.S. shall construct a school-bus parking area on the west edge of New-town Turnpike opposite Oakwood Lane on the Town property, located there to serve school children in a safe manner.” Obviously, the commission considered this a necessary requirement as a safety measure for the school children. There was no evidence before the commission even to suggest that the school authorities would direct that the school buses use this parking area. Of course, the commission itself had no authority to compel the school buses to use it. If, however, F.A.S. constructed the parking area as specified the condition imposed would be fully met and, the other conditions laid down being complied with, the special permit would issue. Then, if the area was not thereafter used by the school buses, the prime objective which the commission sought to achieve and considered essential, namely, the safety of the school children, would be sacrificed to mere formal compliance with the con*314dition. To make the special permit “reasonably conditional on favorable action” by the school authorities, as the majority opinion does, offers no assurance that the essential objective of safety for the school children will ever be attained.
The off-site conditions imposed for the issuance of the special permit are open to still other objections. One condition is that between 8 a.m. and 8:35 a.m. and between 4:25 p.m. and 5 p.m. F.A.S. shall provide one “off-duty regular or special policeman” as a traffic guard at each of three separate points in the access roads “to direct traffic and to provide for safety in the area.” In other words, the commission assumes to specify how many of a certain class of employees F.A.S. shall hire to do a certain job, at certain times, and at certain places. The commission has no power, by statute or regulation, to extend its function beyond the zoning use of land and buildings. It has no authority to impose conditions on this detail of the off-premises operation of F.A.S.’s business. Bernstein v. Board of Appeals, 60 Misc. 2d 470, 302 N.Y.S.2d 141; 2 Rathkopf, Zoning and Planning (3d Ed.), 1969 Cum. Sup., pp. 139, 208.
Other off-site conditions relate to regrading roadsides, highway construction and widening, and roadside planting. “[A]t least 50% of the cost” of a large part of this work is imposed on F.A.S. The rest of the work would be at public expense. No estimate of the cost of any of this work was disclosed to the commission. The commission is permitted, under chapter 9 of the zoning regulations, to grant a special permit “subject to appropriate conditions and safeguards.” Appropriate conditions must be reasonable conditions. The cost to the public of the required work was a material consideration. There is nothing in this record from which the court could *315determine the reasonableness of any of these conditions. Bernstein v. Board of Appeals, supra.
The majority opinion states that if anyone was aggrieved by the imposition of the off-site conditions “it was not the plaintiffs but F.A.S.” and F.A.S. has not complained. The court, however, concluded and adjudged that the plaintiffs were aggrieved by the action of the commission and that conclusion and judgment is not contested. Consequently, there is no basis on this record for considering whether F.A.S. is the only party which could be heard to complain of the off-site conditions imposed on the issuance of the special permit.
In my judgment the trial court did not err in dismissing the plaintiffs’ appeal from the action of the planning and zoning commission in approving a change of zone, but the appeal from the commission’s action in granting a special permit in that zone on the conditions attached should have been sustained.