Court Opinion

ID: 9750182
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:30:29.180327+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:03.672677
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Judge Crumlish :
For reasons different than those spoken by the majority, I concur in the result.
I acknowledge our decisions and those of the Supreme Court which hold that one asserting the invalidity of a zoning restriction has the heavy duty of proving that the regulation is clearly arbitrary and unreasonable and that it has no substantial relationship to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare. Bilbar Construction Company v. Easttown Township Board of Adjustment, 393 Pa. 62, 141 A. 2d 851 (1958); Bidwell, et al. v. Zoning Board of Adjustment, 4 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 327, 286 A. 2d 487 (1972); Nagorny, et al. v. Zoning Hearing Board and Kaiserman, et al., 4 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 133, 286 A. 2d 493 (1972) ; St. Vladimir’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church v. Fun Bun, Inc., and Zoning Board of Adjustment, 3 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 394, 283 A. 2d 308 (1971).
However, zoning ordinances do involve governmental restrictions on a landowner’s constitutionally guaranteed right to use his property in ways he might see fit and proper, National Land & Investment Co. v. Easttown Township Board of Adjustment, 419 Pa. 504, 522, 215 A. 2d 597 (1965), and the justification in governmental restriction must be found in some aspect of the police power, asserted for the public welfare. Euclid et al. v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 386 *105(1926). I have grave doubts about the beneficial effect on the welfare where a zoning ordinance restricts a district in which 16 of 24 lots on the block in question are classified as “non-conforming uses.”
The majority in dismissing the control of Schmalz v. Buckingham Township Zoning Board, 389 Pa. 295, 132 A. 2d 233 (1957), on the constitutionality issue asserts that the Supreme Court’s invalidation of a 50 foot front yard requirement in an agricultural area in Schmaltz is “obviously not authority for invalidating an 85 foot width standard on a developed residential street.”
As I see it, the significance of Schmaltz is not in a similarity of factual situations. The true import of Schmaltz is that the reasonableness of a zoning ordinance must be determined on the basis of its application to present as well as to projected factual postures. 389 Pa. 295, 302.
In considering the 85 foot frontage requirement as applied to conditions noto existent on North Whitehall Eoad, we find that 16 of 24 lots have less than the required 85 feet front. I find it difficult to accept, at this point in time, the ordinance’s reasonable relationship to the health, safety or morals of this locality.
I recognize that other jurisdictions have invalidated zoning ordinances where their effect was to create a number of nonconforming uses in the area. Du Page County v. Halkier et al., 1 Ill. 2d 491, 115 N.E. 2d 635 (1953), Hitchman et al. v. Oakland Twp. et al., 329 Mich. 331, 45 N.W. 2d 306 (1951). I agree with this position and feel that in the proper case, a zoning restriction which has the effect of creating wholesale nonconforming uses is subject to a valid constitutional attack.
However, appellee herein has failed to meet his burden. As the majority aptly points out, the only evi*106dence offered by appellee in support of Ms attack on the constitutionality of the ordinance is that 16 of 24 lots on the block have widths of less than 85 feet. Hardship will result by the enforcement of this frontage requirement, but the hardship herein described, economic or otherwise, is not sufficiently probative to show that the zoning regulation is “clearly arbitrary and unreasonable and having no substantial relationship to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare.”
Detailed evidence consisting of the township’s description, such as the effect or lack of effect of the width requirement, the extent of R-2 district, and other germane factual presentation is wholly lacMng.
I would be impressed by the pronouncement of a witness that 66% of the lots on the block do not conform to the zoning ordinance and hence doubts as to the validity of ordinance are in order, however, that statement alone does not clearly and plainly show that the ordinance has no substantial relationship to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare.
Judge Kramer joins in this Opinion.