24 Pa. Commw. 574 | Pa. Commw. Ct. | 1976
Opinion by
This is Miles J. Lewis’ appeal from a lower court’s order dismissing his appeal from a decision of the Zoning Hearing Board of Lower Gwynedd Township affirming an order of the Township Zoning Officer requiring Lewis to cease and desist business activities on his residential property. We affirm.
The appellant owns a 3.4 acre parcel of land in Lower Gwynedd Township, improved with his dwelling house, a private garage and another small outbuilding. The property is located in the Township’s “A” residential zoning district where commercial activities are prohibited. The appellant has owned the property since July 1959, and since that time has lived there and additionally used portions of the land area as a storage yard for machinery regularly used in his earth moving and excavation business, which he conducts from his home. He has regularly maintained on the property two trucks, a backhoe, a loader, a trailer, a farm tractor and a jeep. In 1974 a neighbor complained to the township zoning officer of early morning noises made by the machinery being prepared for the day’s use and of their unsightly appearance. The zoning officer inspected the premises and ordered the appellant to desist from further use of his residential property for business purposes. The appellant appealed the order of the Zoning Hearing Board which, after hearing, sustained the action of the zoning officer. The lower court, on appeal and without taking further testimony, affirmed.
On appeal to this Court, appellant says that because his commercial use of the property, although always in
This case requires no more than the application of the settled law that mere delay in enforcement does not create a vested right to use property in violation of zoning regulations. See Dewald v. Board of Adjustment, City of Pittsburgh, 13 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 303, 320 A.2d 922 (1974), and Ryan, Pennsylvania Zoning Law and Practice, Section 8.3 (1970).