reviewing court "is powerless to replace the discretion of the commission with its own"
How later courts described this case
- reviewing court "is powerless to replace the discretion of the commission with its own"
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Brown, C. J.
(dissenting). As the majority opinion makes clear, the defendant commission’s creation of this two-and-one-half-acre industrial zone in the midst of the existing rural residence zone encompassing several thousand acres was without authority unless done pursuant to a comprehensive master plan. The principal contention of the defendants is that, since all of the town not otherwise zoned was originally incorporated in the rural residence zone, the intent of the zoning ordinance is that this zone constitutes a reservoir from which the other zones can be supplemented as circumstances may require. They urge, therefore, that in tapping this reservoir by the carving out of the defined area, comprised solely of the Patten land, the commission acted in compliance with a comprehensive master plan. To so hold would warrant its dotting a major portion of the Manchester landscape with similar tiny isolated industrial zones. That several such zones were originally created by the ordinance is of slight consequence, since this was done because of preexisting nonconforming uses which had pre-empted the areas in question. Our decision in Bartram v. Zoning Commission, 136 Conn. 89 , 68 A. 2d 308 , constitutes no authority for the commission’s action, since in that case the change of the small area involved from a residence to a business zone was warranted to provide retail stores to serve the extensive surrounding *712 residential area. The fact that the defendant Patten purchased the land in question with full knowledge that it was located within the rural residence zone gives added reason for a denial of his application. Greenwich Gas Co. v. Tuthill, 113 Conn. 684, 694 , 155 A. 850 . It is my conclusion that the trial court was correct in sustaining the plaintiffs’ appeal, because the defendant commission’s action in rezoning the Patten land, instead of being done in furtherance of the fulfilment of a comprehensive master plan, constituted a clear and unwarranted case of spot zoning.
In this opinion O’Sullivan, J., concurred.