Court Opinion

ID: 9702048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 22:51:38.086425+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:33.030316
License: Public Domain

Baldwin, J.
(dissenting). The record and exhibits disclose that in the immediate neighborhood of the defendant Lustig’s property there were already a large number and a wide variety of commercial enterprises, including meat and poultry markets. Furthermore, it is fair to assume that the circumstances and conditions obtaining in the locality were peculiarly within the knowledge of the members of the board. Kutcher v. Town Planning Commission, 138 Conn. 705, 710, 88 A.2d 538. As a town or city grows, land and building uses change. Business and industry spread and alter the nature of the property uses in a given neighborhood. For this reason, there must be some elasticity in the application of zoning regulations. Boards of appeal provide that elasticity when, confronted by a changing trend in property uses, they grant a temporary waiver to avoid an unusual hardship which would result from a literal enforcement *124of the regulations. Much depends upon the skill and sound judgment of these boards. It is essential to their functions that they be invested with a liberal discretion. They are awarded the benefit of a presumption that they acted fairly and upon valid reasons unless the contrary is shown. St. Patrick’s Church Corporation v. Daniels, 113 Conn. 132, 139, 154 A. 343. Their decisions should not be disturbed unless they are manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable and illegal. That is not demonstrated by the record in this case. Moreover, the defendant had been forced to leave another location on Lexington Avenue when the city condemned that property for a housing project. He was seeking to return to the location in question which he owned and had previously used for a live poultry market. The reasoning in Nielsen v. Board of Appeals on Zoning, 129 Conn. 285, 288, 27 A.2d 392, applies with equal force to the facts in the instant case. The board of appeals on zoning should have been sustained.