66 A.2d 225 | Pa. | 1949
This is an appeal from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County affirming the refusal by the Zoning Board of Appeals of the City of Easton of the appellant's application for an occupancy permit in circumstances which would have required the granting of a variance.
In a case of this nature, the only question properly before the court below was whether the Board of Adjustment, in refusing the variance requested, was guilty of a manifest and flagrant abuse of discretion: Berman v. Exley,
The instant appeal rests on no more than the appellant's factual controversy with the manner of the zoning board's earlier administration of the ordinance in respect of several other properties which she alleges were situated similarly to her own in relation to the zoned area although she "failed to prove that a permit was granted [in the other instances] or that the board approved of the [alleged] changes." The utter irrelevancy of such assertions, even if true, is manifest: seeVentresca v. Exley,
The requested occupancy permit, which, if granted, would have allowed the appellant's conversion of a single dwelling in an "A" residence district into three apartments contrary to the express restrictions of the zoning ordinance, would necessarily have required the granting of a variance. The board's refusal, therefore, of something to which the applicant had neither legal claim nor right was incapable, in the circumstances, of amounting to a denial of the equal protection of the laws. The record is barren of any evidence of discrimination against the appellant. As the learned President Judge of the court below pertinently pointed out with respect to the cases cited and relied upon by the appellant in this connection (Yick Wo v.Hopkins,
Order affirmed at appellant's costs.