Booe v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals of City of Shelton

• Decision Date: 16 June 1964
• Citation: 202 A.2d 245,151 Conn. 681
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: John G. BOOE, Jr., et al. v. ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS OF the CITY OF SHELTON et al. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 245

202 A.2d 245

151 Conn. 681

John G. BOOE, Jr., et al. v. ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS OF the CITY OF SHELTON et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

June 16, 1964.

Bronislaw Winnick, Shelton, for appellant (defendant Conti).

John H. Welch, Jr., Corp. Counsel, for appellant (defendant board).

Norwick R. G. Goodspeed, with whom was David O. Jackson, Bridgeport, for appellees (plaintiffs).

Before KING C. J., MURPHY, SHEA, and ALCORN, JJ., and HOUSE, Acting justice.

ALCORN, Associate Justice.

The defendant zoning board of appeals granted an application by the defendant Nicholas Conti for a variance of the zoning requirements and the approval of a building permit for the construction of a residential hotel on property owned by him in a rural district in Shelton. The plaintiffs, who are admitted to be aggrieved persons, appealed to the Court of Common Pleas, which sustained the appeal, and the defendants have appealed to this court.

The Shelton zoning ordinance, which was adopted in 1952, made provision, inter alia, for rural districts. Shelton Zoning Ordinance § 5 (1952, as amended). One of the uses permitted in a rural district is '[a] hotel having sleeping accommodations for 15 or more guests, subject to the following restrictions: 5.1.5.1 The lot area shall be not less than five acres and not less than 7,000 square feet for each such sleeping accommodation.' Id., § 5.1.5. Other enumerated restrictions are not now material. The ordinance empowers the board of appeals '[t]o determine and vary the application of provisions of this ordinance in harmony with its general purpose and intent and with due consideration for conserving the public health, safety, convenience, welfare and property values solely with respect to a parcel of land where owing to conditions especially affecting such parcel but not affecting generally the district in which it is situated a literal enforcement of this ordinance would result in exceptional difficulty or unusual hardship so that substantial justice will be done and the public safety and welfare secured.' Id., § 13.3.3. Several years after the zoning ordinance became effective, Conti acquired more than seventy acres of land in a rural district. Thereafter, he sold a substantial portion of the land but retained ownership of the parcel containing about four acres which is the subject of the present application. In order to use this four-acre parcel as the site for a proposed residential hotel, Conti filed the application in issue, seeking a variance from the five-acre area requirement of the zoning ordinance for such a use. He also sought a variance as to sideand front-yard requirements,...