Court Opinion

ID: 9698046
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:40:18.081838+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:37.896885
License: Public Domain

Concurring and Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Bell :
The sole question in this case is whether the lower Court abused its discretion in failing to grant a variance. If I had been a member of the board of adjustment or of the Court below, I would have voted to grant a variance under the authority of Michener Appeal, 382 Pa. 401, 115 A. 2d 367, which correctly enunciates the applicable law, pages 406-407: “The law is well established that a variance may be granted only where a property is subjected to a hardship unique or peculiar to itself as distinguished from one arising from the impact of the zoning regulations on the entire district.”
However, I cannot say that the lower Court committed a manifest abuse of discretion and therefore I must concur in the result reached by the majority opinion.
*120All the rest of the majority opinion which deals with the constitutionality of the ordinance as applicable to petitioner’s property, is unnecessary and is obiter dicta.' It proclaims a doctrine which is in violation of all the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, namely, unlimited police power with its derivative omnipotent and all-exclusive “general welfare.” ■ . .
I vehemently dissent:from this part of the-opinion for the reasons set forth at length in my dissenting opinion in Bilbar Construction Co. v. Easttown Township Board of Adjustment, 393 Pa. 62.
" Mr. Justice Musmanno and Mr. Justice Benjamin R. Jones join in this concurring and dissenting opinion.