30 Conn. App. 816 | Conn. App. Ct. | 1993
The plaintiff appeals from the trial court’s order remanding the case to the defendant zoning commission without directing the commission to grant the special case permit. There is no challenge to the trial court’s judgment reversing the commission’s denial of the plaintiff’s application for a special case permit to convert its gasoline station to a self-service gasoline station with an additional repair bay.
The plaintiff has been operating a gasoline station with two repair bays at the intersection of Park Avenue, Barnum Avenue, Boston Avenue and College Street in Stratford. The plaintiff’s property is located across the street from a Merit self-service gasoline station in a zoning district where full service gasoline stations are permitted. Self-service gasoline stations are permitted only as special cases.
Nine reasons were given for the denial: (1) Mobil failed to provide a complete, accurate and up-to-date traffic study showing how the property and streets
The plaintiff appealed to the trial court. Because the plaintiff had provided a suitable traffic study, because no public opposition to the application arose, and because the police department had no comment on the plaintiff’s proposal, the trial court found the the first three reasons for the commission’s decision to be inadequate to support the commission’s conclusion.
“The terms special permit and special exception have the same legal import and can be used interchangeably. . . . A special permit allows a property owner to use his property in a manner expressly permitted by the local zoning regulations. . . . The proposed use, however, must satisfy standards set forth in the zoning regulations themselves as well as the conditions necessary to protect the public health, safety, convenience, and property values. . . . Acting in this administrative capacity, the [zoning commission’s] function is to determine whether the applicant’s proposed use is expressly permitted under the regulations, and whether the standards set forth in the regulations and the statute are satisfied.” (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) A.P. & W. Holding Corporation v. Planning & Zoning Board, 167 Conn. 182, 185, 355 A.2d 91 (1974).
The zoning commission “has no discretion to deny the special exception if the regulations and statutes are satisfied. . . . When a zoning authority has stated the reasons for its actions, a reviewing court may determine only if the reasons given are supported by the record and are pertinent to the decision. . . . The zoning [commission’s] action must be sustained if even one of
“When, on a zoning appeal, it appears that as a matter of law there was but a single conclusion which the zoning authority could reasonably reach, the court may direct the administrative agency to do or to refrain from doing what the conclusion legally requires. Watson v. Howard, 138 Conn. 464, 470, 86 A.2d 67 (1952); Executive Television Corporation v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 138 Conn. 452, 457, 85 A.2d 904 (1952); Bishop v. Board of Zoning Appeals, 133 Conn. 614, 623, 53 A.2d 659 (1947). In the absence of such circumstances, however, ‘the court upon concluding that the action taken by the administrative agency was illegal, arbitrary or in abuse of its discretion should go no further than to sustain the appeal taken from its action. For the court to go further and direct what action should be taken by the zoning authority would be an impermissible judicial usurpation of the administrative functions of the authority.’ Bogue v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 165 Conn. 749, 753-54, 345 A.2d 9 (1974); Guerriero v. Galasso, 144 Conn. 600, 608, 136 A.2d 497 (1957); Watson v. Howard, supra, 469-70.” Thorne v. Zoning Commission, 178 Conn. 198, 206, 423 A.2d 861 (1979).
In Executive Television Corporation v. Zoning Board of Appeals, supra, the defendant rejected the plaintiff’s application for a certificate of approval for a proposed gasoline station and car wash. The trial court concluded that the defendant could not have reasonably concluded that the safety of the public would be unduly imperiled. There was a gasoline station across the street from the
The present case is analogous because here there was no basis for the zoning commission’s denial of the plaintiff’s special case permit application. Thus, the trial court should have ordered that the application of the plaintiff be approved “under such terms and conditions as the [commission] might reasonably prescribe” because as a matter of law the only conclusion the defendant zoning commission could reasonably reach was to grant the permit. Levine v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 124 Conn. 53, 59, 198 A. 173 (1938).
The judgment is reversed only as to the order remanding the matter for further proceedings, and the matter is remanded to the trial court with direction to render judgment directing the zoning commission to grant the special case permit under such terms and conditions as the commission might reasonably prescribe in accordance with its regulations.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
Section 7.1 of the zoning regulations provides that “a self-service gasoline station shall be subject to the approval of the Planning and Zoning Commission as a special case.” A special case permit is the same as a special permit or special exception.
Before the trial court, the commission briefed only the first three reasons for denying the special case permit relating to the traffic study, and, the trial court determined that the commission had abandoned the remaining six reasons. The trial court should not have deemed the reasons abandoned because it is responsible for the review of the record in an attempt to find some basis for the commission’s action. Grillo v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 206 Conn. 362, 369, 537 A.2d 1030 (1988). In fact, the nine reasons given,