Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight v. Zoning Board of Adjustment

In Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight v. Zoning Board of Adjustment, 771 A.2d 874, 878 (Pa. Cmwlth.) (SCRUB), allocatur den., 567 Pa. 733, 786 A.2d 992 (2001), the Court considered an application for a variance by an outdoor advertiser (applicant) who wanted to erect a sign on property the City of Philadelphia had licensed to the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (PAID), and which the City's Water Department used as the site for its Southeast Water Pollution Control Plant. PAID entered into an agreement with the applicant to sub-license a portion of the property for the sign. The City's Licensing and Inspections agency denied a request for a permit because of various aspects of the proposal that did not comply with the City's zoning ordinance. In challenging the denial, the applicant contended that a hardship existed because of the existing uses on the property, and the remaining land (sub-licensed to applicant) could be used only for parking spaces or an outdoor sign. The City's Board of Adjustment concluded that the applicant had established an undue hardship and granted the variance, but the trial court reversed, noting that the property had value as zoned, and that, although the present use for the Water Authority did not require the use of the entire parcel, the property had a use. The trial court also concluded that the hardship was self-created based upon the license agreement. The Court concluded that the applicant had not demonstrated undue hardship even under Hertzberg. The Court regarded the dimensional restrictions as being more in the nature of use restrictions (creating an area prohibiting signs within 500 feet of another sign). The Court explained that "even if we consider those requests dimensional variances, just because a person wants to do more with his or her land in addition to the use that it is presently being used for is not a sufficient unnecessary hardship unique to that piece of land." Id. Further, the Court noted that: An unnecessary hardship is not created because the other use on the property requires a large amount of unoccupied, grassy area in order to isolate it from the surrounding area. Again, nothing guarantees a property owner that every square foot of his property can be occupied. Just because the applicant entered into a sub-lease arrangement with PAID does not prove that the property could not be used for any other purpose but only that PAID wanted to utilize every inch of its leased property and the hardship was self-created." Id. at 878.