Stowe Club Highlands, In re

Decision Date22 September 1995
Docket NumberNo. 94-322,94-322
Citation164 Vt. 272,668 A.2d 1271
PartiesIn re STOWE CLUB HIGHLANDS.
CourtVermont Supreme Court

Harold B. Stevens, Stowe, for appellant.

Leighton C. Detora, Barre, pro se.

Before ALLEN, C.J., and GIBSON, DOOLEY, MORSE and JOHNSON, JJ.

DOOLEY, Justice.

Stowe Club Highlands (SCH), successor in interest to Robinson Springs Corporation (RSC), and owner of a real estate development in Stowe, 1 appeals from a decision of the Lamoille Superior Court which denied a subdivision permit to develop twenty-two acres for a single-family house. The superior court decision was reached in an appeal from the Stowe Planning Commission brought by an adjoining landowner within the development, Leighton Detora. 2 SCH argues that the superior court erred in ruling that the proposed permit is (1) prohibited by the applicable setback requirement of the Stowe zoning ordinance, and (2) that the area in which the house would be developed has been irrevocably dedicated as open space. Although we agree that SCH's second argument is correct, we affirm the decision of the trial court based on the prohibition on constructing the house within the setback area.

The area in issue is a small part of a larger development, originally proposed by Nolex, Inc. on a 235-acre parcel called the Stowe Club property. Although the mix has changed over time, the development plan has included a hotel, single-family lots and townhouses. The original proposal received conditional use approval from the Stowe zoning board and site-plan approval from the planning commission, as well as an Act 250 permit from the district environmental commission. While owned by Stowe Club Associates, after purchase from Nolex, Inc., it received partial subdivision approval to enable sale of twenty single-family lots. One of these lots was purchased by Leighton Detora from Chittenden Trust Company, which took the development from Stowe Club Associates. The current controversy arose when RSC purchased the development property, excluding single-family lots which had already been sold, and started to pursue seriously new permits to complete the development. These included subdivision permits from the planning commission, covering all of the property and uses, and a new conditional use permit from the zoning board to reflect the modifications in the proposal.

The Stowe Club property lies within an agricultural and rural residential zoning district. The district normally allows residential developments only on large lots but authorizes, as a conditional use, a resort planned unit development (PUD), subject to specific conditions in the zoning ordinance. The Stowe Club development has been treated as a PUD and received conditional use permits on that basis.

This case involves only a small part of the development, a twenty-two acre meadow in the northeast corner of the Stowe Club property. Detora's property abuts this meadow. The meadow contains a barn, with a mobile home in it, which was in existence when the original permits were obtained by Nolex, Inc. Although there was discussion of using the barn as a riding stable, it has apparently been unused at least since 1982 when the Nolex, Inc. development was originally proposed. At its nearest point, the barn is approximately seventy-five feet from the boundary line with the northern neighbor.

From the first permit, the meadow was to be dedicated to agricultural use, as well as to contain a septic field. None of the conditions for the many Stowe permits states this explicitly although this intention is contained in the minutes of meetings and in findings. It is stated explicitly in the Act 250 permit. There is very little mention of the barn in any of the proceedings.

The official "boundary plan" on which the subdivision permits are based shows a 200-foot "green belt" surrounding the Stowe Club development on the outer edges of the property, and this "green belt" goes around the eastern and northern portions of the meadow. The barn lies within the green belt.

This case arose when RSC proposed to subdivide out the meadow as a single-family lot and to build a house and stable in the footprint of the barn. Detora objected, arguing that the meadow had been reserved as open space and a house could not be built on the barn site because it lies within a 200-foot nonwaivable setback from the line with the northern neighbor. The planning commission rejected these arguments and approved the subdivision, and this action was followed by conditional use approval by the zoning board of the lot as subdivided. 3 On appeal, the superior court accepted both of Detora's arguments and reversed the grant of the subdivision permit.

Our review of the issues raised by SCH is complicated by the way the case was approached by the superior court. On appeal from a planning commission decision, the court must conduct a de novo trial. See 24 V.S.A. §§ 4472(a), 4475. This standard requires the court to approach the case as if it were the planning commission, without regard to what had been done before by the planning commission. See Chioffi v. Winooski Zoning Bd., 151 Vt. 9, 11, 556 A.2d 103, 104-05 (1989); In re Poole, 136 Vt. 242, 245, 388 A.2d 422, 424 (1978). In the present case, the court failed to evaluate the case according to this standard. Although the court gave Detora a de novo trial on the issues, it addressed only the arguments that the subdivision permit was unlawful because of the prior dedication of the meadow land as open space and the setback requirements in the zoning ordinance.

The effect of the superior court's approach is that it incompletely evaluated the case. Because it ruled that the planning commission could not lawfully grant the disputed permit, the error is harmless if we agree with the court's result. If we conclude that the court erred, however, we must remand for the superior court to evaluate the permit application as if it were the planning commission.

I

We begin by analyzing the superior court's holding that the meadow has been dedicated as open space. The court based its holding on (1) a provision of the Stowe zoning ordinance reserving certain land as "open space"; and (2) a "boundary plan," recorded as part of the subdivision approval, which designates the meadow as an "agricultural easement." We find that neither reason supports the court's holding.

The court concluded that the meadow was reserved for public use, relying upon a section of the PUD provisions of the zoning ordinance which states:

(2) Land which is not included in building lots, streets, rights-of-way, or utility easements, shall be reserved as open space for recreation, conservation, agriculture and the enhancement of the natural environment for living.

Stowe Zoning Ordinance § 12.5(2). In essence, the court ruled that the reservation for public use had become an implied condition of the subdivision permit.

In the related context of zoning permit requirements, we recently addressed the issue of whether representations by a landowner, and findings of fact of a zoning board, represent implied permit conditions even though not expressed as explicit conditions of the zoning permit issued by the board. Deciding that enforcement of implied conditions would "impose a difficult if not impossible burden on interested parties to determine applicable regulatory standards," we held that "[c]onditions that are not stated on the permit may not be imposed on the permittee." In re Kostenblatt, 161 Vt. 292, 299, 640 A.2d 39, 44 (1994).

Kostenblatt distinguished between discretionary permit conditions and minimum requirements for specific land uses within the district involved. The former must be stated explicitly, but the latter are legal requirements with which the landowner must comply. Thus, there is no requirement that the zoning board explicitly state that the landowner must comply with the law or detail all the applicable legal requirements. Id. at 300, 640 A.2d at 44.

We see no reason for purposes of the Kostenblatt holding to distinguish between zoning and subdivision permits. Indeed, part of the purpose of a planned unit development is to merge zoning and subdivision requirements. See 24 V.S.A. § 4407(12) (modification of zoning regulations by planning commission may be permitted simultaneously with approval of subdivision plat); cf. In re Robinson, 156 Vt. 199, 201, 591 A.2d 61, 62 (1991) (reviewing compliance with zoning ordinance through appeal of subdivision permit). We note, however, that the function of a subdivision permit is to approve "plats of land," 24 V.S.A. §§ 4401(b)(2), 4415, and such plats must be "duly filed or recorded in the office of the clerk of the municipality." Id. § 4416. Thus, although we will not recognize implied permit conditions as subdivision permits, recorded plats necessarily become subdivision permit conditions.

We do not believe designation of the meadow for public use existed as an enforceable permit condition. None of the many permits granted by the zoning board or planning commission conditioned approval on the dedication of the meadow as open space. The only plat filed was the boundary plan, which was intentionally incomplete to allow for the development of the single-family residential lots, the only subject of the partial subdivision approval. The map divides large parcels of the overall development for the obvious purpose of leaving the specific description of their development to future proposals. The general outline of these future development proposals had already been presented to the zoning board and planning commission for conditional use and subdivision approval.

We also do not believe that the ordinance provision, set forth above, created a minimum legal requirement that was enforceable even without a specific permit condition. The proposal submitted, and the plat approved, clearly left the use of most of the Stowe Club land...

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