Bernstein v. Board of Appeals

60 Misc. 2d 470, 302 N.Y.S.2d 141, 1969 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1397
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedJune 30, 1969
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 60 Misc. 2d 470 (Bernstein v. Board of Appeals) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bernstein v. Board of Appeals, 60 Misc. 2d 470, 302 N.Y.S.2d 141, 1969 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1397 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1969).

Opinion

Bernard S. Meyer, J.

By this motion petitioners seek to punish respondent Board of Appeals for contempt for failure to comply with the judgment of September 6, 1968, which annulled respondent’s determination denying petitioners a permit to use their premises as a private nursery school and directed respondent “to issue a permit to petitioners permitting them to operate a private nursery school subject to appropriate conditions concerning approval of the facilities by the New York State Department of Education An appeal from the judgment was dismissed (31 A D 2d 650) and leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals having been denied (23 N Y 2d 646), respondent on February 24, 1969 adopted a resolution direct[473]*473ing the Building Inspector to issue a special use permit, subject to a number of conditions and requirements and limited to a term of two years. Petitioners argue that respondent can impose only the conditions referred to in the September 6, 1968 judgment. While the court does not agree with that contention, it does find that respondent’s resolution exceeds its power. The motion to punish is denied without costs, but under the prayer for other and further relief certain of the conditions are declared invalid and the matter is remanded to the board for further proceedings not inconsistent herewith.

Determination of the issues presented by this motion turns on (1) the extent of the authority of the Board of Appeals to impose conditions upon a special exception permit, and (2) the effect of the prior proceedings and judgment upon the board’s authority. On the first question the court notes that, under subdivision 1 of section 175 of the Village Law, the Village Board of Trustees is authorized by ordinance to adopt zoning regulations which “ may provide that a board of appeals may determine and vary their application in harmony with the general purpose and intent, and in accordance with general or specific rules therein contained”, that section 179-b of the Village Law empowers a Board of Appeals to “ hear and decide all matters referred to it upon which it is required to pass under any such ordinance ”, and that under section 435 of the Building Zone Ordinance of the Village of Matinecock the decision and order of the Board of Appeals, in passing upon an application such as petitioners’, “ shall include appropriate and reasonable conditions and safeguards which the Board of Appeals itself deems necessary to impose in any case to assure continual conf ormance to all applicable requirements ’ ’. Though the board may have inherent power even in the absence of a specific ordinance provision to impose reasonable conditions (cf. Matter of Long Is. Lighting Co. v. Horn, 49 Misc 2d 717, 725, affd. 24 A D 2d 840, affd. 17 N Y 2d 652; Matter of Pearson v. Shoemaker, 25 Misc 2d 591; Matter of Hopkins v. Board of Appeals, 179 Misc. 325; 2 Rathkopf, Law of Zoning and Planning, 49-1; 1 Anderson, Zoning Law and Practice in New York State, § 18.43, with Matter of Oakwood Is. Yacht Club v. Board of Appeals, 32 Misc 2d 677), there can be no question about its right to do so in light of the above-quoted provisions (Matter of Ambrosio v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals, 196 Misc. 1005).

The right is not, however, unlimited. The conditions imposed cannot go beyond the ordinance, which is the source of the board’s power (Matter of Community Synagogue v. Bates, 1 N Y 2d 445, 452, 455; Matter of Schlosser v. Michaelis, 18 [474]*474A D 2d 940; Matter of Vit-Al Bldg. Corp. v. Eccleston, 7 A D 2d 737; see People ex rel. Beinert v. Miller, 188 App. Div. 113). They must be directly related to and incidental to the proposed use of the property (Matter of Conmar Bldrs. v. Board of Appeals, 43 Misc 2d 577; Matter of Oakwood Is. Yacht Club v. Board of Appeals, 32 Misc 2d 677, supra; Matter of Pearson v. Shoemaker, 25 Misc 2d 591) and the conditions stated must be sufficiently clear and definite that the permittee and his neighbors are not left in doubt concerning the extent of the use permitted (Matter of Conmar Bldrs. v. Board of Appeals, supra; Matter of Pearson v. Shoemaker, supra). Moreover, the factual basis for the board’s determination to impose a condition must be stated, so that the court will have an intelligent basis for review (Matter of Pearson v. Shoemaker, supra.).

When conditions are imposed by a Board of Appeals after remand following a reversal of its earlier determination, the board’s authority may be limited by its own prior proceedings or by the remand judgment. Its own prior proceedings may limit its authority because res judicata is applicable to administrative determinations unless the nature of the power being exercised or the peculiar necessities of the particular case dictate otherwise (Matter of Evans v. Monaghan, 306 N. Y. 312, 324; Matter of Slattery v. Board of Estimate & Apportionment, 271 N. Y. 346, 351), and the rule against splitting causes of action will be invoked to proscribe piecemeal administrative determinations except under the same special circumstances. If the board’s earlier determination was based on less than all the grounds available to it, it could not have urged other reasons before the court in support of that determination in the prior article 78 proceeding (Matter of Aiosa, N. Y. L. J., March 31, 1966, p. 18, col. 5 [Pittoni, J.]), nor could the court in its review have gone beyond the grounds invoked by the board (Matter of Barry v. O’Connell, 303 N. Y. 46, 50; Matter of Rubel Corp. v. Murdock, 255 App. Div. 224, affd. 280 N. Y. 839; Matter of Blum v. D’Angelo, 15 A D 2d 909), for enumeration of the reasons is tantamount to definition, explanation and restriction ” (Matter of Steiert v. Epstein, 15 A D 2d 532). If it has thus waived grounds that it could have but did not urge in the earlier determination, it cannot after remand base conditions upon those grounds unless the remand judgment permits it to do so.

The rule concerning remand judgments is that ‘ ‘ Although an administrative agency is generally free, in a proper case, to exercise its full discretion anew when proceedings are remanded to it, it may not do so to the extent that an order [475]*475explicitly limits such discretion” (Matter of Quittner v. Herman, 15 A D 2d 68, 70, affd. 11 N Y 2d 800; see Federal Comm. v. Broadcasting Co., 309 U. S. 134; 1 N. Y. Jur., Administrative Law, p. 666, § 209; 2 Davis, Administrative Law Treatise, p. 624, § 18.11), for an agency is bound to honor the judicial decision made on review of its determination (Matter of Anderson v. Johnson Lighterage Co., 241 N. Y. 523; Matter of Jones v. Schenectady Boys Club, 276 App. Div. 879). That rule is, however, subject to the limitation that a court may not, in passing upon an agency order, exercise the discretion which the statute has vested in the agency (Matter of Nash v. Brooks, 276 N. Y. 75, 81), unless the agency has been given the opportunity to exercise its discretion and failed to do so (Matter of Levin v. Thornbury, 2 A D 2d 774).

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60 Misc. 2d 470, 302 N.Y.S.2d 141, 1969 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1397, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bernstein-v-board-of-appeals-nysupct-1969.