# Asmus v. Ono Island Board of Adjustment

> Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama · February 13, 1998 · 716 So. 2d 1242

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7716180

## Case

- **Full name:** Grover E. Asmus, Barbara F. Asmus, Kenneth Schor, Madeleine Desmonts, Patrick H. Sims, and Barbara A. Sims v. Ono Island Board of Adjustment and Charles Chappuis.
- **Court:** Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama
- **Decided:** February 13, 1998
- **Citations:** 716 So. 2d 1242; 1998 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 130; 1998 WL 57749
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Robertson
- **Judges:** Wright, Yates, Monroe, Crawley, Thompson, Robertson
- **Cited by:** 1 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7716180

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- reversing a variance obtained by a property owner that would have allowed him to build a pier and a boathouse on his property when the pier would have extended 64 feet further than allowed under the zoning ordinance, and holding that the property owner did not meet the unneces…

## Opinion text

ROBERTSON, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. To demonstrate entitlement to a variance, a landowner need only show that “the plight of the premises in question is unique in that they cannot be put reasonably to a conforming use because of the limitations imposed upon them by reason of their classification in a specified zone.” Ex parte Chapman, 485 So.2d 1161, 1162 (Ala.1986). Here, the trial court heard evidence that while almost every tract within the Board’s jurisdiction has a covered boathouse or wharf at the far end of a pier, Chappuis’s tract is unique in that the presence of government-protected grassbeds prevents him from building a similar covered boathouse or wharf within the 150-foot limit imposed by the Baldwin County ordinance.
The zoning ordinance thus prevents Chap-puis from using his property in the precise manner that his neighbors use their property, and as applied to Chappuis in the setting of his property’s environment on Ono Island constitutes an arbitrary and capricious interference with his private property rights. Chapman, supra. I would affirm the judgment of the trial court; therefore, I dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/7716180. Public record. Not legal advice.