The Comprehensive Plan Requirement

The Third Department, in an opinion by Judge Eugene Devine, reversed, dismissed the Article 78 proceeding, and declared that the relevant provision of the town Code was valid. The court concluded that the absence of a zoning ordinance was not an impediment to enactment of a site plan review ordinance because section 274-a of the Town Law allows a town board to authorize site plan review “as part of a zoning ordinance or local law.” (emphasis by the court). The court then held that the site plan review provision satisfied the statutory comprehensive plan requirement because it stated general goals (promoting health safety and welfare and ensuring “maintenance and continued development of the Town”) and provided for advancement of those goals by regulating land use activity “through review and approval of site plans.” Once the court concluded that the site plan provision was itself valid, the court had little trouble sustaining the conditions imposed by the planning board, noting that fencing requirements and limits on firewood storage were responsive to the complaints of neighbors, and were not arbitrary or capricious.

The Comprehensive Plan Requirement

The significance of the statutory requirement that zoning and other land use regulation be in accordance with a comprehensive plan has long been the subject of controversy, both in New York and elsewhere. In Udell v. Haas, 21 N.Y.2d 463, the Court of Appeals invoked the requirement that zoning be in accordance with a comprehensive plan to invalidate an amendment rezoning property that had long been zoned for business use. In holding that the newly-imposed residential classification was not in accordance with a comprehensive plan, the court emphasized that the plan requirement was designed to protect landowners “from arbitrary restrictions on the use of his property which can result from the pressures which outraged voters can bring to bear on public officials.” The court emphasized that a “key factor” in evaluating whether the comprehensive plan requirement has been met is “whether forethought has been given to the community's land use problems.”

The court in Udell emphasized that the comprehensive plan need not be embodied in any particular document, but must reflect fundamental development policies that “may be garnered from any available source, most especially the master plan of the community, if any has been adopted, the zoning law itself and the zoning map.”