Court Opinion

ID: 9761798
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:54:44.027507+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:26.475296
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice, dissenting.
I dissent.
The majority requires objectors to produce “studies, police records, property valuations or any type of substantive evidence ... which would lead a reasonable mind to conclude that the facility would be detrimental to the community’s general welfare.” Maj. op. at 80. The majority, *83realizing that this type of evidence is expensive, also states that the City could have provided such evidence in this case, but does not indicate procedurally how this could be accomplished. Since the City, at the time public hearings are conducted and evidence is received, functions in a judicial capacity, the City would have been precluded from simultaneously presenting evidence. Thus, the burden has to rest upon neighborhood residents who are opposed to the conditional use to provide the kind of cumulative and unnecessary evidence required by the majority. In addition, the majority has exceeded the proper scope of review, and, in weighing the evidence, has, in effect, conducted a de novo hearing in the matter.
In this case, appellee sought to open a pre-release center for 24 convicted male felons (with convictions for the full range of felonies, including rape, robbery, burglary and manslaughter). Appellee proved that the standards set forth in the zoning ordinance were met, during hearings before the City Planning Commission.
To meet their burden, neighborhood residents, speaking from personal knowledge, reported that: (1) muggings on residents’ doorsteps were frequent; (2) the facility would be located near five bars, a State Liquor Store and a house of prostitution; (3) many female and elderly residents considered themselves to be “prisoners within their own homes” due to the local incidence of burglary, rape, murder and drug and alcohol abuse; and (4) the neighborhood was increasing in population and residents were actively seeking to attract investors to develop the area into a stable community. I would hold that such evidence on the part of the objectors is sufficient to prove detriment to the general welfare of the community and impediment to development of the surrounding property.
Appellee, responding to concerns about security at the hearings, stated only that a trained “house manager” would be available 24 hours a day. Reproduced Record at 24a. In addition, contrary to what the majority found regarding this center’s operation at another location, appellee admitted *84that one incident since 1969 had required outside help “to control the situation.” Id. Appellee alleged that other centers operate safely in residential high crime areas but did not produce documentary evidence to support this allegation. Hence, Appellee did not rebut appellant’s evidence.
For this Court to foist this pre-release center upon the residents of the Soho/Bluff area of the City of Pittsburgh (sensitively described as a community in a “ ‘fragile’ state of transition” by the Court of Common Pleas) is particularly repugnant in that this Court refused recently to recognize a cause of action in tort against a Youth Study Center and the political entities owning and operating it in an allegedly negligent manner for the criminal activity of youths who had escaped therefrom. Mascaro v. Youth Study Center, 514 Pa. 351, 523 A.2d 1118 (Larsen, J., dissenting). With one hand we introduce a potential danger into the community; with the other, we take away any recourse for injuries caused by that danger.
By its decision today, the majority guarantees that facilities like the pre-release center herein will never be placed in wealthy communities. This is so because the majority places a burden upon objectors to conditional uses of producing cumulative and unnecessary evidence that none but the well-to-do could possibly afford.
Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Commonwealth Court and affirm the Order of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County.
McDERMOTT, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.