Court Opinion

ID: 9760941
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 01:24:54.435074+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:18.953746
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Chief Justice Jones:
William Colligan, the present appellee, petitioned the Zoning Board of Adjustment of the Borough of Whitehall for a variance. The Board, which has jurisdiction over zoning matters only, refused to grant the *134variance. Mr. Colligan appealed to the County Court of Allegheny County which held that his proposed building would comply with the terms of the zoning ordinance. Somehow not explained by the record, a question of compliance with the Borough’s subdivision ordinance was argued before the County Court, although it was not and could not have been argued before the Zoning Board of Adjustment, whence the case arose. Article XYI of the Borough Code* prescribes that the Borough Council handle all questions concerning subdivision regulation and that any appeal from a decision of the Council in such regard shall be taken to the Court of Quarter Sessions, where the issue is to be heard de novo. The County Court, nevertheless, took jurisdiction of the wrongly injected subdivision question and held that Colligan was not subject to the terms of the subdivision ordinance. The County Court then further ordered “that a building permit be issued” to Colligan. (Emphasis supplied.) It is from that order that the Borough of Whitehall appealed.
The opinion for this court holds that the County Court was right in concluding that Colligan’s proposed building would comply with the zoning ordinance. With that, I agree. The majority opinion takes note of the Borough’s assertion that the County Court had no jurisdiction over the subdivision issue, but it fails to meet that issue. In fact, the opinion for the court ignores the Borough’s contention that all that the Zoning Board of Adjustment could competently have issued and, consequently, all that the County Court could order it to issue, was a zoning permit and not a building permit. To qualify for a building permit in the Borough of Whitehall an applicant must not only *135comply with zoning and subdivision ordinances, but also with plumbing and electrical codes, as to which there is no evidence of any compliance.
The appellant Borough’s contentions on these points seem to me to be unanswerable. If so, the County Court was without jurisdiction of the subdivision issue. The order of that court should, therefore, be modified so that a zoning permit may be issued to Colligan, but not a building permit.
Accordingly, I dissent.

 Act of May 4, 1927, P. L. 519, as amended by tbe Act of July 19, 1951, P. L. 1026, No. 217,. §7, 53 PS §§46671-46678.