Court Opinion

ID: 9757791
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:59:07.637484+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:44.448671
License: Public Domain

NIX, Justice,
dissenting.
I agree with the Commonwealth Court that exclusion of boarding homes from R-4 residential districts when rooming houses are allowed in such districts is not supported by a reasonable basis.
Rooming houses in cities of the class as Pittsburgh are as much, if not more of a transient trade as boarding homes. Further, I question the accuracy today of equating a boarding home which serves one or even two meals with a commercial restaurant.
Actually, it appears that rooming houses are more commercial in nature because the business of renting rooms in large cities is frequently more transient than boarding *229homes that are essentially stable residences with a family-type atmosphere.
The majority sees a relationship to the health, safety and general welfare of the community in the distinction based upon the availability of meal service. That distinction has “no real difference relevant to zoning purposes.” Layne v. Zoning Board of Adjustment, City of Pittsburgh, 64 Commonwealth Ct. 258, 265, 439 A.2d 1311, 1315 (1982). Especially when an equal protection of the laws challenge is raised we must closely scrutinize to ensure that regulations adopted pursuant to zoning power are not unreasonable, arbitrary or confiscatory.
[T]he power to thus regulate does not extend to an arbitrary, unnecessary or unreasonable intermeddling with the private ownership of property, even though such acts be labelled for the preservation of health, safety and general welfare. . .
Eller v. Board of Adjustment, 414 Pa. 1, 6, 198 A.2d 863, 865-866 (1964), quoting Anstine v. Zoning Board of Adjustment, 411 Pa. 33, 190 A.2d 712 (1963).
Therefore I dissent.
LARSEN, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.