Court Opinion

ID: 9849207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:36:11.339743+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:07.163887
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The City contends that the current definition of “family” in its zoning ordinance precludes the use to which the Flynns are putting their home. Municipal ordinances must be proven. This court cannot take judicial notice of municipal ordinances. Oliver v. City of Macon, 241 Ga. 306 (245 SE2d 280) (1978). The word “family” has been deleted from the definitions section of the ordinance in the transcript of proceedings and the new section of the ordinance, if any, does not appear in the record or transcript of proceedings. We thus are relegated to the generic meaning of the word. Webster’s first definition of “family” is “all the people living in the same house; household.” Webster’s New World Dictionary, Second College Edition. The generic definition of family therefore imposes no limitation as to the number of persons residing within a “dwelling” or their relationship by blood, adoption, marriage or otherwise. Neither is it of legal significance in this case that the owner or owners of the “dwelling” receive remuneration from or in behalf of some or all of *224the residents.
The key word in the ordinance is “dwelling.” The ordinance’s definition of “dwelling” proven of record in the present case is “Any building or portion thereof, but not an automobile house trailer, which is designed for or used for residential purposes.” The Flynns’ home certainly is a “dwelling” for purposes of the zoning ordinance.
One category of permitted use within an area of the city zoned “C-L” or “Commercial-Limited” is a “dwelling, nursery, retail establishment, drive-in restaurant, and service station only in those cases in which such specific uses and buildings were in existence on lots of record at the time of the application of this article.” The city does not contend that the Flynns’ home was not in place on the lot on the effective date of the zoning ordinance but does assert that the specific use to which the Flynns now put their property is forbidden because it was not in existence on the ordinance’s effective date. We disagree. The specific use to which the Flynns’ home was put on the effective date of the ordinance and to which it was put when this case was tried was a “dwelling” within the meaning ascribed to that word in the zoning ordinance. A “family,” in the generic sense of that word, resided there then and resides there now. The numbers and relationships of the members of that “family” and any remuneration contributed by or in behalf of them to the “family” in which they reside are not relevant to the issue presented in this case.

Motion for rehearing denied.