SSM Associates Limited Partnership v. Plan & Zoning Commission of Fairfield

545 A.2d 602, 15 Conn. App. 561, 1988 Conn. App. LEXIS 304
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedAugust 16, 1988
Docket6032
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 545 A.2d 602 (SSM Associates Limited Partnership v. Plan & Zoning Commission of Fairfield) 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
SSM Associates Limited Partnership v. Plan & Zoning Commission of Fairfield, 545 A.2d 602, 15 Conn. App. 561, 1988 Conn. App. LEXIS 304 (Colo. Ct. App. 1988).

Opinion

Borden, J.

The defendants1 appeal from the judgment of the trial court issuing a writ of mandamus requiring them to issue a certificate of zoning compliance to the plaintiffs2 for construction of an office building. The dispositive issue involves the meaning of the term “site plan” as used in General Statutes § 8-3 (g).3 We find no error.

The parties stipulated to the following facts. The named plaintiff had an agreement to purchase from the other plaintiff the property in question, consisting of approximately 4.25 acres located in a designated research district (DRD) established pursuant to the Fairfield zoning regulations. On March 11, 1986, the plaintiffs filed with the named defendant (commission) a complete application for approval of the construction of an office building on the property. The proposed building is a permitted use in a DRD, and requires a [563]*563special permit from the commission. The application included submission of a site plan which is inseparable from the requirement of a special permit. Zoning regulations require that the plaintiffs’ application be referred to the commission for approval. The plaintiffs’ application was supported by plans, maps, and drawings of the site improvements, site topography, architecture, floor designs, planting and lighting, elevations and other data showing the proposed five-story office building encompassing 92,565 square feet of office space, with a “footprint” of 18,975 square feet, to be constructed on approximately 10 percent of the land area of the property, together with surface and garage parking for 316 vehicles.

The parties further stipulated that the commission’s first regular meeting following receipt of the application was on March 25, 1986. Although a hearing was not required, on April 22,1986, the commission scheduled a public hearing on the application to be held on June 10, 1986. At an executive session on June 17, 1986, the commission denied the application. The commission’s decision was published on June 21, 1986.

The parties further stipulated that, by letter of June 19, 1986, the plaintiffs requested a certificate of zoning compliance from the defendant zoning enforcement officer, based on the fact that no action had been taken by the commission within sixty-five days of March 25, 1986. The defendants did not respond to this request, and have not issued the requested certificate. The plaintiffs did not consent to any extensions of time limitations pursuant to General Statutes § 8-7d. The decision of the commission was rendered eighty-four days after March 25,1986, the date of the commission’s first regular meeting after receipt of the plaintiffs’ application. The trial court held that the case was controlled by our decision in Carr v. Woolwich, 7 Conn. App. 684, 510 [564]*564A.2d 1358, cert. denied, 201 Conn. 804, 513 A.2d 698 (1986), and rendered judgment issuing the writ of mandamus. This appeal followed.

The defendants raise several related claims of error, all of which concern whether Carr v. Woolwich, supra, controls this case. Although Carr is factually distinguishable from this case, our determination of an issue which Carr left unresolved leads to the conclusion that the trial court did not err.

In Carr, we noted “that there is an inconsistency in the use of the term, ‘site plan,’ between the first and third sentences of [General Statutes § 8-3 (g)]. The first sentence connotes that the site plan is but a part of the application approval process, namely, as an aid in determining whether a proposed use conforms to the regulations. The third sentence contemplates automatic approval of a site plan by the passage of time, as if approval of the site plan carries with it approval of the entire application with respect to which, under the first sentence, the site plan is simply an aid to determine the conformity of the proposed use with the regulations.” Id., 699-700.

In Carr, however, we found it unnecessary to resolve the inconsistency “because in [Carr] we view[ed] the plaintiff’s site development plan as inseparable from, and part and parcel of, its accompanying documents. The regulation pursuant to which the site development plan was filed required that the plan ‘show all applicable data required.’ The application, the site plan itself and the accompanying two page document, taken together, purported to show all such data required by the regulations. Thus, for purposes of General Statutes § 8-3 (g), the plaintiff’s site plan included his application and two page document.” Id., 700.

In Carr, therefore, a coalescence of factors made it unnecessary to resolve the statutory inconsistency in [565]*565§ 8-3 (g). First, the regulations required that the site plan itself show all applicable data required by the regulations. Furthermore, the applicant’s site plan was “a detailed site development plan”; id., 685; accompanied by a two page document which supplemented it by containing necessary information not shown on the site plan document. It also was accompanied by an application for a zoning permit. Id. All three documents, of which the site development plan was dominant and was required to show all applicable required data, purported to show all the data required by the regulations. Id., 700. Under those circumstances, we concluded that “for purposes of General Statutes § 8-3 (g), the plaintiff’s site plan included his application and two page document”; id.; and that automatic approval of the site plan was presumed to include approval of the accompanying documents. Id.

In this case, however, the regulations do not require that the site plan itself “show all applicable data required,” as provided by the Bridgewater regulation. Id. Section 25.2 of the Fairfield zoning regulations requires that an application for a special permit be accompanied by a “written statement describing the proposed use”; § 25.2.1; “a site plan as defined in section 31.0”;4 § 25.2.2; “[architectural plans as defined in section 31.0”; §25.2.3; and “such additional infor[566]*566mation that the commission may deem necessary to make a reasonable decision on the application.” § 25.2.4.

The “site plan” required by the Fairfield regulations, therefore, does not carry with it the same degree of dominance in the application process as it did in the Bridgewater regulations at issue in Carr. Under these circumstances, therefore, we deem it necessary to resolve the inconsistency in § 8-3 (g) which we noted in Carr.

We resolve that inconsistency by concluding that the term “site plan,” as used in § 8-3 (g), is a general term which is used in a functional sense to denote a plan for the proposed use of a particular site, purporting to indicate all the information required by the regulations for that use. As such, it includes the entire package of documents submitted to a zoning “commission or other municipal agency or official to aid in determining the conformity of a proposed building, use or structure with specific provisions of such [zoning] regulations.” General Statutes § 8-3 (g). Several considerations lead us to this conclusion.

First, the term “site plan” is not defined by the statute, and this record does not disclose to us the extent to which the town of Fairfield has defined it in its zoning regulations.

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545 A.2d 602, 15 Conn. App. 561, 1988 Conn. App. LEXIS 304, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ssm-associates-limited-partnership-v-plan-zoning-commission-of-fairfield-connappct-1988.