Development

In affirming, the Appellate Division first held that because the planning board had never given final approval for subdivision of the portion of the property landowner now seeks to develop, the planning board remained free to assess possible environmental impacts. The court then noted changes in the regulatory landscape for environmental matters over the preceding 25 years, and held that those changes constituted new information or a change of circumstances. The court noted landowner's objection that the planning board's conclusion about specific environmental concerns was incorrect, but held that its review was limited to whether the agency took a hard look at environmental concerns and made a reasoned elaboration of its conclusion. In this case, the agency satisfied that standard.

Definition of Family Not Unconstitutionally Vague

Grodinsky v. City of Cortland 163 A.D.3d 1181 App Div, Third Dept., 7/12/18 (Opinion by Lynch, J.)

In a declaratory judgment action, landowners appealed from Supreme Court's judgment upholding provisions in the city code limiting occupancy of dwelling units to a “family.” The Appellate Division affirmed, holding that the code's definition was not unconstitutionally vague, and that the city had a reasonable basis for imposing the limitation.

Landowners own residential structures and rent them primarily to groups of college students. A local ordinance requires owners to obtain a rental permit before renting any building in the city, and limits occupancy of dwelling units to a “family” as defined in the city code. The code defines family to include all groups of three or fewer people, and also “four or more persons … living together as a traditional family or the functional equivalent of a traditional family.” The code also includes a presumption that four or more unrelated persons do not constitute the functional equivalent of a traditional family. The ordinance when on to provide a set of guidelines for determining whether four or more unrelated persons constitute the functional equivalent of a family. Supreme Court upheld these provisions against a vagueness attack, and landowners appealed.

In affirming, the Appellate Division held that the term “family” was sufficiently defined so that a person of ordinary intellect would be able to understand its meaning. The court then held that the limitation of occupancy to families was reasonably related to a legitimate governmental purpose in light of concerns about overcrowding of dwelling units occupied by transient residents.

Comment

A zoning ordinance's definition of “family” for single-family housing will violate the State's due process clause where the definition places a restriction on functionally equivalent families, while placing no restriction on biologically or legally related families. In McMinn v. Town of Oyster Bay, the Court of Appeals held that a zoning ordinance's definition of family was facially unconstitutional on due process grounds where the definition restricted single-family housing “to any number of persons related by blood, marriage or adoption or to two persons not so related but both of whom are 62 years of age or older.” In upholding a challenge by the owner of a single family home rented to four unrelated men aged between 22 and 25, the court reasoned that the definition violated the State's due process clause because it bore no relationship to the zoning ordinances' objectives. For example, court noted that the ordinance's definition would bar a young unmarried couple from renting a home even though the barring the couple would not threaten any of the legitimate reasons — traffic, parking, noise, and neighborhood character — for limiting the home to a single family. Even when an ordinance permits a significant number of unrelated individuals to live together, the ordinance violates due process if it would permit an unlimited number of related family members to live together but would restrict the number of unrelated individuals in a functionally equivalent family from living together. In Children's Village v. Holbrook, 171 A.D.2d 298, the Third Department held invalid a definition which capped at five the number of unrelated individuals permitted to live together. In Children's Village, the town board had invoked the ordinance to deny a special permit to operate a group home for 10 abused and neglected adolescent boys.

The only appellate decision on point has held that a zoning ordinance is not unconstitutionally vague when it defines “family” as a “traditional family” or a “functionally equivalent family. In Morrissey v. Apostol, 75 A.D.3d 993, the Third Department dismissed a declaratory judgment action by a landlord when the city found the landlord had violated the ordinance by renting to six unrelated college students. The court rejected landlord's contention that the ordinance was impermissibly vague when it defined family as “one, two, or three persons occupying a dwelling unit … or … four or more persons occupying a dwelling unit and living together as a traditional family or the functional equivalent of a traditional family.” The Court reasoned that the ordinance “contained sufficient standards to afford a reasonable degree of certainty so that a person of ordinary intelligence is not forced to guess at its meaning.” Id. at 996.