Court Opinion

ID: 9698825
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:00:42.940432+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:43.676336
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I vigorously dissent.
The Commonwealth Court was correct in holding that Solebury Township’s zoning ordinance unconstitutionally excludes the development of mobile home parks. The majority is incorrect in framing this issue as a matter of factual dispute.1 Ordinances rise and fall on their face. A use is either included or it is excluded as a matter of law, and this matter is quite simply determined by reading the ordinance. A party to an exclusionary zoning dispute cannot by evidence show that apples are oranges or that two plus two equals five. Trial courts need not pore over the records in these cases to find evidence of inclusion or exclusion. Rather, they must examine the plain meaning of *444the ordinances themselves, using the statutory rules of construction to interpret the words of the ordinances. To allow the meanings of the ordinances to depend upon what zoning boards wish them to mean is to throw the law into chaos, and will encourage these governing bodies to continue engaging in practices that exclude persons of moderate and limited income from residing in their communities.
In addition, the majority commits grievous error in remanding the case for entry of an order and proceedings consistent with a section of the Municipalities Planning Code which came into effect after the case was argued to this Court.2 A majority of this Court previously considered the 1978 amendment that was made to this section of the Code, and determined that a retroactive application of the amendment to a case which challenged a zoning ordinance before the amendment went into effect constituted a violation of due process. Fernley v. Board of Supervisors of Schuylkill Township, 509 Pa. 413, 502 A.2d 585 (1985), reargument denied.
It is manifestly unjust to change the “rules of the game” while a case wends its cumbersome way through our appellate system. We are always striving to achieve predictability in the law, so that citizens can be able to continually keep their affairs and behavior in order. The majority today, by giving retroactive effect to section 1006-A of the Code, 53 P.S. 11006-A, seriously undermines this goal.
Accordingly, I would affirm the order entered by the Commonwealth Court wherein it remanded the case to the Court of Common Pleas of Bucks County for the entry of an order consistent with the provisions of section 1011(2) of the Code, 53 P.S. § 11011(2), with the common pleas court retaining jurisdiction for the purposes of ensuring that development is not prevented or unduly burdened for reasons of retribution.

. Section 1011(2), 53 P.S. § 11011(2), was repealed and section 1006-A, 53 P.S. § 11006-A, was enacted on December 21, 1988, to become effective in 60 days, or approximately four months after the case was argued.