Minor Subdivision Plot Approval No. 88-340 for Stanley Robinson, In re, 90-016
| Decision Date | 15 March 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-016,90-016 |
| Citation | 156 Vt. 199,591 A.2d 61 |
| Court | Vermont Supreme Court |
| Parties | In re MINOR SUBDIVISION PLOT APPROVAL # 88-340 FOR STANLEY ROBINSON. |
John J. Long, Jr. and C. Daniel Hershenson of Hershenson, Carter, Scott & McGee, Norwich, for appellant.
Robert B. Buckley, Jr. and John C. Candon of Hughes, Miller & Candon, Norwich, for appellees.
Before ALLEN, C.J., and GIBSON, MORSE and JOHNSON, JJ.
Stanley and Bonnie Robinson, and Shepard Construction Co., Inc., applied to the Town of Hartford Planning Commission for approval of a four-lot minor subdivision. Philomena Sacco, whose property is bordered on three sides by one of the lots of the proposed subdivision, contested the application. The application was approved, and Sacco appealed to the superior court. After a trial de novo pursuant to 24 V.S.A. § 4472(a), the court ordered that a minor subdivision permit be issued to the Robinsons and Shepard Construction Co., but with a number of conditions necessary to give effect to the Town of Hartford zoning and subdivision regulations. Sacco appealed to this Court, claiming that the trial court's issuance of the permit was error because the proposed subdivision a) did not comply with lot frontage requirements for the applicable zoning district; b) violated a prohibition against "reserved strips," as defined by the Hartford Subdivision Regulations; and c) did not provide safe access past Sacco's property to the proposed lots of the subdivision. We affirm.
The dispute centers around the access drive to the proposed lots. The access drive is a 20-foot-wide by 395-foot-long strip of land that begins at the end of Windsor Drive and continues in a northerly direction past the westerly boundary of Sacco's property. Prior to the proposed subdivision, the access drive was used exclusively by the Robinson and Sacco residences. It is paved to a few feet beyond Sacco's garage, where it then continues to the Robinson property as a gravel road. Under the new subdivision plan, the drive will serve two additional houses. The drive is intended to be part of one of the proposed lots, Lot 003, but subject to rights of way in the other property owners. The drive is the only access to the proposed lots, and the dimensions of the strip of land preclude any other use of the drive by Lot 003.
Sacco's first claim on appeal is that proposed Lot 003 does not comply with the width requirements of Hartford's Zoning Regulation 4-7-2, because only twenty feet of Lot 003 has frontage on a public road. Regulation 4-7-2 defines lot measurements and requires that eighty percent of the required lot width for this residential zone have frontage on a road, in this case one hundred feet. The Hartford zoning regulations also permit interior lots, with zero street frontage, as long as there is access from a street through private "rights-of-way" or "easements" meeting certain safety requirements. Regulation 4-3-3.1. The trial court correctly determined that Regulation 4-7-2 does not logically apply to Lot 003. But for the access drive, which continues from the end of a public road, Lot 003 is really an interior lot with access to the street by private road. That Lot 003 will be accessed by its own strip of land, rather than a right-of-way or easement, is not inconsistent with the scheme of Hartford zoning regulations.
Sacco further contends that the access drive is an unlawful "reserved strip" under § 5-4-1.3 of the Hartford Subdivision Regulations. The reserved-strip provision states: "No privately owned reserved strip, except on open space areas shall be permitted which controls access to any part of the subdivision or to any other parcel of land from any street...." Case law in another jurisdiction indicates that so-called "reserved strips" typically have been narrow strips of land, reserved from the major parcel granted, with the object of limiting the accessibility of the parcel. Koff v. Frank, 22 Misc.2d 551, 553, 194 N.Y.S.2d 753, 756 (Sup.Ct.1959); Warren v. Protano, Inc., 155 N.Y.S.2d 686, 689 (Sup.Ct.1956). That is the opposite of the case at bar. Since all lots will have rights-of-way over the access drive owned by...
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