Zoning Commission v. Tarasevich
Zoning Commission v. Tarasevich
Opinion of the Court
This action was commenced by the plaintiff, the zoning commission of the town of Groton, hereinafter called the commission, seeldng to enjoin the defendants, Leona and Daniel Tarasevich, from operating their mobile home park, Dan’s Trailer Park, without a license and in violation of the zoning regulations of the town of Groton.
The pertinent facts are as follows: The defendant Daniel Tarasevich established a trailer park in Groton in 1952. The trailer park was expanded to nine mobile-home sites by the end of 1956. All nine sites were in existence prior to the adoption of zoning in the town of Groton and thereafter their use
The defendants failed to comply with the relocation condition and to date have not complied. On August 6, 1966, the zoning enforcement officer reported to the commission the failure of the defendants to relocate the mobile home on lot one and the officer was directed to issue a cease and desist order. The defendants were notified by mail to abate the violation within ten days by removing the mobile home from lot one. On January 4,1967, the commission directed a notice to be sent to the defendants that the license issued to Dan’s Trailer Park would be revoked as of February 1, 1967, for their failure to comply with the condition attached to the issuance of the license. After this notice was sent, the defendants at their request were given an opportunity to be heard at a meeting on February 1, 1967, at which time they requested further time to relocate. As a result of this request the commission tabled the matter for one month. On April 7, 1967, the zoning enforcement officer notified the defendants that the license of Dan’s Trailer Park would be revoked as of April 10, 1967, because of violations of Ordinance No. 56, and the license was so revoked. It is not disputed that because of the defendants’ failure to remove the trailer unit from lot one there was no longer an approved site plan for Dan’s Trailer Park as required by the provisions of Ordinance No. 56. The defendants took no further action to comply with Ordinance No. 56 and have continued to operate Dan’s Trailer Park without a license since April 10, 1967, the date of revocation.
The defendants have assigned numerous errors and have sought-corrections in the finding. None of the corrections to which they are entitled, however, would change the result or be material to the very simple issue before us.
The defendants do not deny that they never made an application for a license, or for the renewal or the extension of the original license. The only effort of compliance with the ordinance was the submission of a mythical site plan in which lot one was non
The plain answer to this claim is that the defendants have not at any time since the revocation of their license made application for a license under the provisions of Ordinance No. 56. The defendants are, as the court correctly concluded, in no position to claim that the provisions of the ordinance which govern licensing have been unconstitutionally applied to them. It is elementary in our jurisprudence that this court will not consider academic questions. “Law suits are not determined by a consideration of philosophy in the abstract, but by the application of legal principles to the facts of a particular case.” Lomas & Nettleton Co. v. Waterbury, 122 Conn. 228, 234, 188 A. 433. The undisputed facts here are that the defendants by their inaction acquiesced in the revocation of their license; on revocation, the continued operation of Dan’s Trailer Park without a license violated Ordinance No. 56. The only provision of the ordinance which affects these defendants is the section which forbids the operation of a mobile home park without a license. In this respect, they differ from the would-be licensee in Keating v. Patterson, 132 Conn. 210, 43 A.2d 659. In the Keating case this court struck down as unconstitutionally vague a licensing ordinance which in effect gave an administrative board power to grant or withhold certificates of approval according to its unregulated discretion. The aggrieved party in the Keating case, however, had filed his application, had been denied approval and had brought the question of the vagueness of the ordinance properly before the court; in effect, the plaintiff’s harm in the Keating case was the direct result of the board’s unbridled and dis
There is no error.
In this opinion House, C. J., MacDonald and Bogdanski, Js., concurred.
Ordinance No. 56, entitled “An Ordinance Regulating and Licensing Mobile Home Parks, Mobile Homes and Travel Trailers,” was adopted by the commission on December 1, 1965, with an effective date of January 7, 1966. While it provides in § 12.2.1 that “[n]o person shall maintain or operate a trailer park in the Town of Groton,” § 12.2.2 permits the continuance of mobile home parks and trailer parks in existence at the time of the adoption of zoning regulations as a nonconforming use provided that certain requirements, including a license, are fulfilled under the terms of § 12.3.
The finding of the court refers to an agreement both to relocate the trailer unit located on lot one as well as to relocate (the site of) lot one. It is clear from the supporting evidence printed in the commission’s appendix that the condition or agreement referred only to relocation of the trailer unit located on lot one.
Some question, has been raised at trial and on appeal by the defendants regarding the authority of Daniel Tarasevieh to represent Leona Tarasevieh, the record owner of the trailer park property, in submitting the site plan and in obtaining the license. Whether Daniel Tarasevieh was her agent in these transactions is, however, immaterial in view of the conceded fact that no license has been sought and no license application made since the revocation of the license on April 10, 1967.
The court found that the mobile home unit on lot one was located within a fifty-foot right-of-way entrance to the trailer park and that the zoning commission deemed this condition hazardous. Although the defendants have no quarrel with this finding, they claim there is no support for the court’s conclusion that the trailer situated on lot one was in fact a hazard to traffic. Whether a hazard existed on lot one is, however, irrelevant to the issue before us, namely, whether the court correctly concluded that the operation of Dan’s Trailer Park without a license violated Ordinance No. 56.
The defendants seem to urge in their brief that certain language in those sections of the ordinance which govern site plan approval and licensing is too vague and renders the ordinance void on its face. By this argument, they seek to circumvent their lack of standing to challenge the application of the licensing provisions as to them. This they cannot do. We are not here confronted with a licensing ordinance which on its face threatens the exercise of a fundamental right. See Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 58 S. Ct. 666, 82 L. Ed. 949. In the Lovell case, the Supreme Court held that the first amendment invalidated an ordinance which on its face made criminal distributing literature in any manner without a license. The appellant, who had not sought a permit to distribute religious literature was, the court held, excused from seeking the permit and entitled to contest the validity of the ordinance in answer to the eharge against her. Here, in contrast, the subject matter of the licensing regulation—commercial operation of a trailer park—is one which a zoning commission might lawfully prohibit in toto. Jensen’s, Inc. v. Plainville, 146 Conn. 311, 314, 150 A.2d 297. Its claimed literal vagueness is not subject to the kind of attack which succeeded in the Lovell case, primarily because the existence of such an ordinance as in the Lovell case posed a threat to the exercise of a fundamental right regardless of whether the ordinance was applied.
Concurring Opinion
(concurring). I concur in the result. I do not agree, however, that the defendants lack standing to challenge the constitutionality of the licensing ordinance and I believe that the court should have addressed itself to this claim.
The majority opinion adopts the view that the defendants may not be heard to attack the eonstitu
With regard to the constitutionality of the attacked ordinance, a lengthy discussion of the matter is unnecessary since the standards and provisions of the ordinance meet the test of constitutionality. State v. Stoddard, 126 Conn. 623, 628, 13 A.2d 586.
Reference
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- Zoning Commission of the Town of Groton v. Daniel Tarasevich Et Al.
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