Court Opinion

ID: 9580350
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:04:20.84013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:13.939406
License: Public Domain

Gregory, Justice,
dissenting.
The effect of the majority opinion is to deny this commercial landowner access to the alley. But I do not believe that was the legislative intent behind the various ordinances involved.
*500Decided September 24, 1987
Reconsideration denied October 21, 1987.
Marva Jones Brooks, Robert L. Zoeckler, David D. Blum, for appellants.
George B. Haley, Jr., Melody Wilder, for appellees.
The apparent purpose of the 20-foot requirement contained in the buffer provision was to provide a buffer of limited use between commercial and residential property. Where commercial property joins residential property the commercial property owner is required to devote the last 20 feet of the lot next to the residential property as a buffer. Where there is an alley half its width may be counted in the buffer. Nothing in the buffer provision prevents access to the alley. The commercial landowner could simply make an unpaved driveway across the buffer and have access. The driveway would not violate the requirement that the buffer “not be used for the purpose of parking or paving or for the purpose of parking, loading or servicing. . . .” But an unpaved driveway would violate a different provision. It is found in § 16-28.014 (1) of the City of Atlanta’s Zoning Ordinance and requires driveways to be paved. I would construe the provisions of the ordinance together to mean that an exception to the prohibition against paving in a buffer zone is that created by the requirement that a driveway be paved.
If the intention of the City Council had been to deny access to alleys from commercial lots that would be simple enough to express. “There shall be no access from any commercial lot to any alley.” It is most unlikely the intention behind the provisions we face was to deny access.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Marshall and Justice Smith join in this dissent.