Allied Plywood, Inc. v. Planning & Zoning Commission

480 A.2d 584, 2 Conn. App. 506, 1984 Conn. App. LEXIS 678
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedSeptember 4, 1984
Docket2978; 2828
StatusPublished
Cited by75 cases

This text of 480 A.2d 584 (Allied Plywood, Inc. v. Planning & Zoning Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Connecticut Appellate Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Allied Plywood, Inc. v. Planning & Zoning Commission, 480 A.2d 584, 2 Conn. App. 506, 1984 Conn. App. LEXIS 678 (Colo. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

Spallone, J.

These are combined appeals. Allied Plywood, Inc. (Allied) appeals1 from the dismissal of its administrative appeal from the decision of the defendant planning and zoning commission of the town of South Windsor (commission), denying Allied’s site [508]*508plan application. Savin Brothers, Inc. (Savin) appeals from the denial of an application for a writ of mandamus ordering the commission to approve the site plan application.

The administrative appeal and the petition for a writ of mandamus were consolidated and tried together. The record and proceedings before the commission were the bases for the trial court’s decision in both cases.

Allied entered into an agreement to purchase from Savin certain property known as Lot No. 6, Parkcentre,2 in the town of South Windsor. The agreement was conditioned upon Allied’s obtaining site plan approval for its planned warehousing operation. Lot No. 6 is located in a zone in which warehousing is a permitted use. In accordance with the South Windsor zoning regulations, Allied submitted its site plan of development to the commission for approval. The commission denied the application, and Allied appealed to the trial court on November 13, 1981. The trial court dismissed the appeal stating that the commission’s reasons for rejecting the application were supported in the record and were concerns properly before it. Allied appeals from that dismissal claiming that the court erred (1) in determining that the reasons for denying the application were supported in the record and were concerns properly before the commission, when the application complied with all applicable zoning regulations, and (2) in considering facts and issues beyond the scope of the commission’s formally stated reasons.

On November 13, 1981, the date on which Allied appealed from the commission’s decision, there was no [509]*509statutory right to bring such an appeal.3 Jajer v. Zoning Commission, 38 Conn. Sup. 492, 494-95, 452 A.2d 122 (1982). It is well settled that appeals to courts from administrative officers or boards exist only under statutory authority and that unless a statute provides for such appeals, the courts are without jurisdiction to hear them. Kosinski v. Lawlor, 177 Conn. 420, 425, 418 A.2d 66 (1979); Bardes v. Zoning Board, 141 Conn. 317, 318, 106 A.2d 160 (1954). The trial court had no jurisdiction to hear this appeal. We therefore hold that the trial court’s dismissal of the plaintiff’s appeal was proper, but for the wrong reason.

Where the trial court reaches a correct decision but on mistaken grounds, the trial court’s action will be sustained if proper grounds exist to support it. Favorite v. Miller, 176 Conn. 310, 317, 407 A.2d 974 (1978); Morris v. Costa, 174 Conn. 592, 597-98, 392 A.2d 468 (1978); DiMaggio v. Cannon, 165 Conn. 19, 24, 327 A.2d 561 (1973). The present case is within that principle of law. We find no error in Allied Plywood, Inc. v. Planning & Zoning Commission.

Since we have concluded that Allied had no statutory right of appeal, we have negated the court’s reason for denying Savin’s petition for a writ of mandamus, i.e., [510]*510that Savin had an adequate remedy at law, to wit, the administrative appeal. In denying the petition for a writ of mandamus, the trial court expressly referred to its memorandum of decision in Allied’s appeal. Therefore, Savin claims that the court erred not only in finding that it had an adequate remedy at law, but also in finding that the commission had the discretion to reject the site plan. In order to address that issue, we must look to the record to determine if the trial court would have been justified in denying mandamus on any other grounds.

Pursuant to the town zoning regulations, Allied presented its preliminary plans to the engineering department of the town of South Windsor and thereafter submitted its final plans to the commission. After a public hearing at which exhibits were entered and testimony taken, the application was denied on October 27, 1981.

The commission’s stated reason for denying the application was that “the construction of the proposed building would infringe on nearby residential property owners and their basic rights due to the size and height of the building.” The record reveals that the proposed building, in fact, met every requirement of the applicable zoning regulations.4 Although some concern about the adequacy of the proposed buffer zone was voiced at the public hearing, the plans provided a 70 foot wide buffer where the regulations required one of only 25 feet. The commission’s reason for denying the application is as vague and unsatisfactory as the reason given in Kosinski v. Lawlor, supra, 422. In Kosinski, the planning section of the planning and zoning com[511]*511mission of Hamden found that a site plan complied with the applicable regulations, but withheld approval of the plan on the ground that it constituted a “poor use of the site.” Id. The Supreme Court sustained the trial court’s conclusion that this reason was “vague, uncertain in meaning and provided no real guidance to the plaintiff as to the manner in which the plan failed to comply with the requirements of the regulations.” Id., 423. The court held that since the plan, as submitted, complied with all the applicable regulations and the applicant had no adequate remedy at law, mandamus would lie.

In this case, the commission’s reason for denying the site plan application makes no reference to whether the applicant complied with the regulations. It merely comments upon the size and height of the building. The trial court, however, stated that in the present case “it is clear that the commission did not conclude that the site plan met zoning requirements. It concluded that, given the nature and size of the operation, there was insufficient buffer to satisfy Section 4.8.4.3 of the South Windsor zoning regulations. Admittedly, the Commission did not use the explicit language of this opinion, but there was ample evidence as to the nature of their concern.”

As we have noted above, the commission’s sole reason for denying the site plan was that the size and height of the proposed building would somehow infringe upon the basic rights of residential property owners in the neighboring area. No mention of the buffer zone was made. Thus, we find that the memorandum of decision in this case discloses that the trial court looked behind the formal vote and the reasons stated by the commission for its action and inferred that the commission found the plan deficient in respects other than those reasons stated. This was clearly erroneous. [512]*512“[Wjhere a zoning commission has formally stated the reasons for its decision the court should not go behind that official collective statement of the commission.

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Bluebook (online)
480 A.2d 584, 2 Conn. App. 506, 1984 Conn. App. LEXIS 678, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/allied-plywood-inc-v-planning-zoning-commission-connappct-1984.