Court Opinion

ID: 9571002
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:28:20.635614+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:25:59.201181
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE WHITING,
dissenting.
In my opinion “the record itself, taken as a whole, suffices to render the issue fairly debatable.”
The evidence before the board establishes that during the prior year, there were six migrant workers housed in the subject building, plus a “man and his wife and three or four children.” Upon *351questioning by the board’s chairman and counsel for the Ameses, every witness agreed that such occupancy did not affect the surrounding community in any of the ways that they feared.
At the end of the hearing, the member who moved to deny the 20-worker application read certain provisions of the ordinance, which required the board to consider the general character of the neighborhood and the effect of the 20-worker home upon the environment and property values of adjoining property owners. When his motion failed for lack of a second, another member said:
I realize that this is a situation which everyone has talked about this morning, this labor has to be and also it is (sic) an effect on the community, and I am somewhat familiar with what goes on in labor camps, and it is true, the larger the labor camp, the more problems you have. This is unfortunately, is near a residential area. I am willing to make a motion if it can be accepted to permit a camp there of at least (sic) ten people. Six last year and no one even knew they lived in the community, and if this gentleman can get by with ten I would make this recommendation or a motion that we approve it for ten people to be housed there.
I believe it is apparent here that he, and the majority of the board, did not think that 10 workers would violate the standards recited above, because they had not been violated when six migrant workers resided in the same house during the prior year. Moreover, the trial court did not reverse the board’s action because the record was “silent”; it simply disagreed with the majority’s conclusion. It held:
[Tjhis migrant labor housing should be placed in unpopulated areas. Here you have it adjacent to a nice little country town, and the people, of course, of Painter are very proud of their town. It is a clean neat community and I certainly don’t think that putting a labor camp right adjacent to the town limits facilitates that preservation. I think the Board in this case was wrong and did not follow that guideline of the Zoning Ordinance. . . .
The issue here is whether this decision is “fairly debatable.” If it is, the board’s decision should be affirmed, as the majority concedes. However, the majority holds that we cannot review the *352board’s decision because the record is “silent.” I do not believe the record is “silent.” On the contrary, the board rejected the Ameses’ 20-worker occupancy request. This, combined with the other evidence, makes the validity of the grant of a 10-worker occupancy permit “fairly debatable.”
Because this grant of a special use permit, like the denial of a special use permit in County Board of Arlington v. Bratic, 237 Va. 221, 377 S.E.2d 368 (1989), is “fairly debatable,” “[ujnder such circumstances, it is not the [adjoining] property owner, or the courts, but the legislative body which has the prerogative to choose the appropriate use.” Bratic, 237 Va. at 229, 377 S.E.2d at 372.
Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the trial court and enter final judgment, declaring that the Board of Zoning Appeals’ grant of the use permit was not improper as a matter of law.
Alternatively, I would reverse the trial court and remand the case, with directions to remand it to the board so as to give it the opportunity to state more fully its reasons for granting the special use permit. See, e.g., Thorpe v. Zoning Bd. of Review, 492 A.2d 1236, 1237 (R.I. 1985); Sherman v. Frazier, 84 A.D.2d 401, 411, 446 N.Y.S.2d 372, 378-79 (1982); Schenkel v. Allen County Planning Comm., 407 N.E.2d 265, 271 (Ind. App. 1980); Eastgate Theatre, Inc. v. Board of County Comm’rs, 37 Or. App. 745, 754-55, 588 P.2d 640, 645 (1978); Vahle v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals of Canton, 97 Ill. App. 2d 165, 170, 239 N.E.2d 865, 868 (1968).