defining “Family” as “[o]ne or more person[s], occupying a dwelling unit, related by blood, marriage, or adoption, living together as a single housekeeping unit and using cooking facilities and certain rooms in common.”
How later courts described this case
- defining “Family” as “[o]ne or more person[s], occupying a dwelling unit, related by blood, marriage, or adoption, living together as a single housekeeping unit and using cooking facilities and certain rooms in common.”
- “Where a statute or ordinance defines a word or phrase, the court is bound thereby although such definitions may be different from ordinary usage.”
- improper citation for allegedly operating an ordinance-defined “hotel,” as well as for offering “transient lodging” and “transient tenancies,” neither of which were defined in the ordinance
- “Because of . . . ambiguity [in the language of the ordinance], we are required to interpret the language of the [o]rdinance in favor of the landowner . . . .”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
DISSENTING OPINION BY
SENIOR JUDGE COLINS
I respectfully dissent from the well-written, scholarly opinion of the majority.
However, I feel that all of the evidence of record supports the trial court’s affir-mance of the Board’s decision that appellants are using the property, not as a single-family dwelling, but rather are conducting a short-term transient lodging business. No doubt can exist that the intended meaning of the ordinance was not to allow the property to be used as a short-term rental unit for multiple families and/or individuals. Transient short-term rentals for multiple families, or groups were not included within the drafters’ intentions when restricting the zoning use to that of single-family properties.