Lower Merion Township v. Frankel
| Decision Date | 22 March 1948 |
| Docket Number | 2456 |
| Citation | 358 Pa. 430,57 A.2d 900 |
| Parties | Lower Merion Township, Appellant, v. Frankel |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued January 13, 1948
Appeal, No. 38, Jan. T., 1948, from decree of C.P Montgomery Co., June T., 1945, in Equity, No. 14, in case of Township of Lower Merion v. E. J. Frankel. Decree affirmed.
Bill in equity to restrain defendant from erecting an apartment house. Before KNIGHT, P.J.
Adjudication filed finding for defendant and order entered dismissing bill. Plaintiff appealed.
Decree affirmed at the appellant's costs.
John E. Forsythe, with him Wright, Mauck & Hawes, for appellant.
C Brewster Rhoads, with him C. Russell Phillips Philip F. Newman and Garrett A. Brownback, for appellee.
Before MAXEY, C.J., DREW, LINN, STERN, PATTERSON, STEARNE and JONES, JJ.
The plaintiff, a township of the first class, sought by this suit in equity to enjoin the defendant from erecting an apartment house on a tract of land owned by him and located within the township. The learned court below entered a final decree dismissing the bill of complaint and the plaintiff took this appeal. A number of interested persons and organizations were allowed by the court below to intervene as parties plaintiff, but none of them filed brief in this court or asked leave to present oral argument.
The case involves a municipal attempt to re-zone a narrowly limited area in a way that would prevent the owner of the principal part of the area from developing his property for a use wholly permissible, at the time of his acquisition of it, under applicable and then long extant zoning regulations. Following the defendant's purchase of the property, he paid relatively large sums on account of the purchase price; bound himself by his bond, secured by a mortgage of the property, for the payment of a substantial balance; and also incurred other large expenses and obligations in furtherance of his contemplated use of the property. A building permit, moreover, for such use had been duly issued to him but was later suspended as a result of litigation instituted by objectors under a lately enacted zoning amendment which was hurriedly introduced and passed in an obvious effort to prevent the owner's proposed use of his property.
The legal questions raised are (1) whether an objector's appeal to the local board of adjustment (under Sec. 3107 of the First Class Township Law of June 24, 1931, P.L. 1206, 53 PS § 19092-3107) from the issuance of the building permit operated to stay all proceedings thereunder, (2) whether, as a result of the expenditures made by the defendant and the obligations incurred by him under existing local zoning regulations and in reliance upon the building permit actually issued, he had acquired a vested right to use his property in the manner originally authorized, and (3) whether the amendatory zoning ordinance was constitutional as applied to the defendant and his particular property.
The learned chancellor correctly answered these questions by applying to his findings of fact the germane...
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