holding that “[t]he burden is placed upon the party who asserts a physical merger to establish” that merger is required
How later courts described this case
- holding that “[t]he burden is placed upon the party who asserts a physical merger to establish” that merger is required
- holding that use of an adjoining lot as a lawn area, garden, and truck passage was insufficient to establish merger
- “The right to develop a nonconforming lot is not personal to the owner of property at the time of enactment of the zoning ordinance but runs with the land, and a purchaser’s knowledge of zoning restrictions alone is insufficient to preclude the grant of a variance unless the purchase itself gives rise to the hardship.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
DOYLE, Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority because the facts presented in this case fit squarely within the purview of Section 95-90 of the Borough’s zoning ordinance.
Section 95-90 of the ordinance, reduced to its essential provisions, states:
A lot ... of record title ... which is in single and separate ownership at the time of the enactment of this chapter [1969], where such owner does not own adjoining land ... may be used for a use permitted in the district in which it is located....
Nothing is more clear than the Gregors owned only Lot 40 (since 1967) when the ordinance was adopted in 1969 and did not acquire Lot 41 until 1980. The East Greenville Borough Zoning Hearing Board ignored Section 95-90, finding only that the Gregors’ hardship was “self-created” because they purchased Lot 41 eleven years after the adoption of the zoning ordinance.
In footnote 1 the majority (op. p. 310) concludes that Section 95-90 is inapplicable. To the contrary, since Lot 41 was held in single and separate ownership at the time of the enactment *428 of the zoning ordinance in 1969 and meets the minimum and maximum lot size requirements, Section 95-90 is applicable.