Smith v. Butler Mountain Estates Property Owners Ass'n

367 S.E.2d 401, 90 N.C. App. 40, 1988 N.C. App. LEXIS 377
CourtCourt of Appeals of North Carolina
DecidedMay 3, 1988
Docket8728SC476
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 367 S.E.2d 401 (Smith v. Butler Mountain Estates Property Owners Ass'n) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Smith v. Butler Mountain Estates Property Owners Ass'n, 367 S.E.2d 401, 90 N.C. App. 40, 1988 N.C. App. LEXIS 377 (N.C. Ct. App. 1988).

Opinions

JOHNSON, Judge.

Plaintiffs are the owners of a lot in Butler Mountain Estates. Butler Mountain Estates is a residential development containing forty-eight lots, and at the time of this action, consisted of twelve lots upon which houses have been constructed and three lots upon which houses are under construction. The lots in Butler Mountain Estates are subject to restrictive covenants set forth in a restrictive agreement. The restrictive covenants provide that the lots are to be used for single family residential houses and specify that any dwelling erected thereon is to have a habitable floor space on the main level of at least 1100 square feet. Furthermore, the restrictive covenants provide that:

all building plans . . . shall require the approval of the developer and/or Property Owners Association. ... No structure of any kind, the plan, elevations, and specifications which have not received the written approval of the developer and/or Property Owners Association and which does not [42]*42comply fully with such approved plans and specifications, shall be erected, constructed, placed or maintained upon any lot . . .

In the beginning, prior to the formation of an architectural review board, proposed plans were submitted to each existing homeowner and approved or disapproved by the individual homeowners based on square footage and on the design.

On 29 February 1984, Elbert S. Brown and Dorothy S. Brown, the developers of Butler Mountain Estates, signed a Grant of Architectural Review, by the terms of which they granted to Butler Mountain Estates Property Owners Association Corporation, all rights of review and approval reserved by the developer under the above quoted restrictive covenant regarding building plans. In January of 1985, an architectural review board was formed to review all proposed building plans for each dwelling unit to be constructed. The architectural review board consists of the Board of Directors and the existing homeowners in Butler Mountain Estates.

In October 1985, plaintiffs submitted a set of plans for a proposed dwelling unit to the architectural review committee for approval. Plaintiffs’ plans, which were not for a geodesic dome house, were rejected solely because they failed to meet the restrictive covenant’s square footage requirement.

In December 1985, plaintiffs submitted a second set of plans for a proposed dwelling unit, a geodesic dome house, to the architectural review committee for approval. The architectural review committee rejected these plans because of the roofline and the geodesic design of the house. It was also determined that the plans did not meet the minimum square footage requirement, but the architectural review committee did not express that failure as a prime consideration for rejecting plaintiffs’ plans. On 23 January 1986, the president of the Property Owners Association mailed plaintiffs a letter indicating that the “proposed structure reflects a marked departure from home-building styles prevailing throughout the area” and that plaintiffs “might consider a design closer to the home-building styles that exist on Butler Mountain Estates.”

[43]*43The primary manner in which this plan was such a radical departure from the existing homes was in its roofline. Plaintiffs’ home would have an irregular domed roofline, which is built out of a series of triangles and pentagons, whereas the existing houses have conventional horizontal rooflines.

The architectural review committee did not have written standards as to design acceptability of plans but did establish among themselves a format to review plans submitted by owners. The committee believed that the homes should “conform and blend together.” (See Illustrations on page 44.)

On 11 April 1986, plaintiffs filed their complaint seeking a declaratory judgment and alternatively injunctive relief. Defendant filed its answer on 13 June 1986. On 18 September 1986, plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment which was denied by order of the court on 5 November 1986. On 17 December 1986, a trial without jury was conducted before Judge Robert M. Burroughs, Sr. On 18 December 1986, after making findings of fact and conclusions of law, an order was filed granting defendant’s motion for involuntary dismissal pursuant to Rule 41(b) of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure. Plaintiffs appeal.

Plaintiffs bring forth sixteen assignments of error grouped into three arguments for this Court’s review. For the following reasons, we find no error and affirm the order of the trial court.

First, plaintiffs contend that the trial court erred in finding as fact and concluding as a matter of law that plaintiffs’ second set of plans did not meet the restrictive covenant square footage requirement and that the plans were rejected on this basis. We disagree.

The court’s findings of fact are conclusive on appeal if supported by any competent evidence, and a judgment supported by such findings will be affirmed, notwithstanding the fact that evidence to the contrary may have been offered. Brooks v. Brooks, 12 N.C. App. 626, 184 S.E. 2d 417 (1971).

In the case sub judice, there was sufficient competent evidence to support the court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law. The restriction in question states in part that:

[44]*44[[Image here]]

Illustration of existing houses in Butler Mountain Estates

[[Image here]]

Illustration of Plaintiffs' geodesic house pi

[45]*45No structure or building shall be erected, altered, placed, or permitted to remain on any property or tract of land conveyed in Butler Mountain Estates other than one detached single family dwelling, permanent in nature, the habitable floor space of which, exclusive of basements, porches, garages, is less than 1,100 square feet on the main level of said residence. (Emphasis added.)

Evidence was also admitted in response to questions tendered by plaintiffs, that the habitable living space on the main level of the house proposed by plaintiffs was thirty to fifty feet short of the required square footage. Thus, there was competent evidence to support the court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law that plaintiffs failed to meet the 1100 minimum square footage requirement and that the architectural review committee “rejected [the plans] invariably” on that basis.

Next, plaintiffs contend the trial court erred in finding as fact that (a) defendants had developed an architectural style as construction took place; (b) that the existing housing was of a common, similar or like design; and (c) that the plaintiffs’ second set of plans was a marked departure from existing homes in the development and did not meet the roofline designs of homes in the area. Again, we disagree.

We have thoroughly examined the record and find that there is sufficient evidence in the record to support the trial court’s findings of fact. The photographs of the twelve houses that exist in the development establish that they are of common, similar or like design, though they are not all exactly alike. The plans submitted by the plaintiffs revealed that the roofline of plaintiffs’ house was not of the same or similar design of the other houses. The remaining houses had flat roofs, or pitched roofs with flat planes, and plaintiffs’ geodesic home roofline was dome shaped.

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Smith v. Butler Mountain Estates Property Owners Ass'n
367 S.E.2d 401 (Court of Appeals of North Carolina, 1988)

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Bluebook (online)
367 S.E.2d 401, 90 N.C. App. 40, 1988 N.C. App. LEXIS 377, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smith-v-butler-mountain-estates-property-owners-assn-ncctapp-1988.