BRUCE A. CADY
v.
ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS OF THE TOWN OF BURLINGTON ET AL.
Argued
April 3, 2018
Procedural
History
Appeal
from the decision of the named defendant upholding the
decision of the defendant zoning enforcement officer
approving certain property line revisions, brought to the
Superior Court in the judicial district of New Britain, where
the case was transferred to the judicial district of
Hartford, Land Use Litigation Docket; thereafter, the case
was tried to the court, Berger, J.; judgment sustaining the
appeal, from which the defendant GM Retirement, LLC, on the
granting of certification, appealed.
Reversed; judgment directed.
William J. Tracy, Jr., for the appellant (defendant GM
Retirement, LLC).
Marjorie Shansky, for the appellee (plaintiff).
Palmer, McDonald, Robinson, D'Auria, Mullins and Kahn, Js
[*]
OPINION
MULLINS, J.
The
defendant GM Retirement, LLC, [1] appeals from the judgment of the
trial court sustaining the administrative appeal of the
plaintiff, Bruce A. Cady.[2] In the present appeal, the defendant
argues that the trial court improperly (1) concluded that the
defendant's proposed revision of boundary lines between
certain adjacent lots constituted a new subdivision under
General Statutes § 8-18, [3] thereby implicating § IV.B.5
of the Burlington Zoning Regulations (regulations), which
requires an increased minimum lot area for new subdivisions,
and (2) applied § III.F.7 of the regulations, which
governs the establishment of non-conforming uses on
preexisting lots. We conclude that the trial court improperly
determined that the defendant's proposed lot line
revisions constituted a subdivision and improperly applied
§ III.F.7 of the regulations.
More
specifically, we conclude that, when the town of Burlington
(town) adopted § IV.B.5 of the regulations on October 1,
1983, the defendant's property contained three
conforming, buildable lots, and that the proposed lot line
revisions at issue in this case maintained three conforming,
buildable lots. Thus, the defendant's proposed lot line
revisions did not create a subdivision because those
revisions did not divide one parcel of land into three or
more parts. As a result, we further conclude that the
defendant did not propose the establishment of a
nonconforming use because the property lines, as revised, met
the size requirements applicable to lots in existence as of
October 1, 1983. Therefore, the trial court improperly
applied § III.F.7 of the regulations to the present
case. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the trial
court.
The
record and the trial court's memorandum of decision
reveal the following facts and procedural history. The
plaintiff resides in Burlington, and the defendant owns
property abutting the plaintiff to the east.[4] Both the
plaintiff's property and the defendant's property are
bordered by Claire Hill Road to the north and Route 179 to
the south. The defendant's property consists of 1.63
acres, which was once four lots. The largest of these four
lots, 48Claire Hill Road, contains a two family dwelling and
occupied roughly the entire northerly half of the
defendant's property.
The
remaining three lots are to the south along Route 179. The
first of these lots, located to the east, was previously
owned by Clara L. Rainault. The second lot, located in the
center, was previously owned by Donald F. Wark and Ellen P.
Wark. The third lot, located to the west, was previously
owned by Mary Legowski. In 1959, the Department of
Transportation took land from these three southerly lots to
widen what is now Route 179.[5]
After
the state widened Route 179, there were portions of each of
the three southern lots that were unused. The unused portion
of the eastern lot had been retained by Rainault but, because
of the amount of that lot used to widen Route 179, that
remnant became a nonconforming lot. The Department of
Transportation had taken ownership of the Wark and Legowski
lots in their entirety, and those lots remained conforming,
even after a portion of each was used to widen Route 179. As
a result, where there had once been four conforming lots, now
there were three conforming lots.
In
1986, the defendant's predecessor in title purchased the
remnant of the Rainault lot. That lot was then combined with
48 Claire Hill Road to make one lot. The parties do not
dispute that when the defendant's predecessor in title
purchased the Rainault lot, it was combined with 48 Claire
Hill Road. In 2013, the defendant purchased 48 Claire Hill
Road, which now included the Rainault lot. Then, in 2014, the
defendant purchased the remnants of the Wark and Legowski
lots from the state.
Thereafter,
the defendant presented a map of the three lots with revised
property boundaries to the town's zoning enforcement
officer, Liz Burdick, for approval.[6] In this map, dated May 22,
2014, the defendant proposed lot line revisions which
reconfigured the three lots on its property. The sizes of the
three reconfigured lots were, respectively, 30, 261 square
feet, 16, 866 square feet, and 24, 057 square feet. Burdick
found that ‘‘[t]he three lots that were
reconfigured as shown on this map [dated May 22, 2014] have
been in existence since at least September 1958 as evidenced
in a map entitled ‘Town of Burlington, Map Showing Land
Acquired from Clara L. Raineault, [b]y [t]he State of
Connecticut . . . .' ''
Burdick
further explained as follows: ‘‘The land
comprising the current [three] lots was originally [four]
lots . . . . The Rainault, Wark [and] Legowski lots were
subject to a state taking for road improvements on Route
[179]. The [s]tate . . . acquired the Wark [and] Legowski
lots in their entirety in 1959. Rainault retained her (now
non-conforming) lot and then transferred it to [the
defendant's predecessor in title] in 1986 to be combined
with 48 Claire Hill Road . . . . Therefore, as of the time of
the filing of the subject [l]ot [l]ine [r]evision map, it is
my opinion there were three preexisting lots, one at 48
Claire Hill Road . . . and two on [Route 179] . . . which
could be reconfigured as needed to comply with current
minimum bulk requirements of the R-15[7] zoning district for purposes
of lot improvement and that no subdivision was required in
order to proceed to do so.'' (Footnote added.)
Burdick further found that ‘‘the filing of the
May 22, 2014 [l]ot [l]ine [r]evision [m]ap, reconfiguring the
properties [into] conforming R-15 zone lots permits
development . . . .''
The
plaintiff filed an appeal with the town's Zoning Board of
Appeals (board), which held a public hearing. The board
ultimately denied the appeal and upheld Bur-dick's
decision.
The
plaintiff then filed an appeal with the trial court pursuant
to General Statutes § 8-8 (b), alleging that the board
committed both procedural and substantive errors when it
denied his appeal. Specifically, the plaintiff claimed, inter
alia, that the proposed realignment of boundary lines for the
three lots constituted a subdivision under § 8-18 and
that the resultant lots were too small to satisfy the minimum
lot area requirements for lots created by subdivision after
October 1, 1983.
The
trial court agreed with the plaintiff and reversed the
decision of the board. The trial court found that the board
improperly concluded that the defendant's proposed lot
line revision did not constitute a subdivision within the
meaning of § 8-18. In reaching this conclusion, it
relied on the Appellate Court's decision in Goodridge
v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 58 Conn.App. 760, 765-66,
755 A.2d 329, cert. denied, 254 Conn. 930, 761 A.2d 753, and
cert. denied, 254 Conn. 930, 761 A.2d 753 (2000), for the
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