Boyajian v. Planning & Zoning Commission

Citations

• 206 Conn. App. 118

Syllabus

The plaintiffs, B and J Co., operated a liquor store in the town of Vernon. The town's zoning regulations required establishments that sell alcoholic liquors to be separated by a distance of no less than 3000 feet. T filed an application with the town's zoning board of appeals for a variance that would allow him to establish a liquor store in a location that was 2935 feet from the plaintiffs' store. The board scheduled a public hearing on the application and provided notice of the hearing to the abutting landowners by letter and to the general public in a local newspaper. At the conclusion of the hearing, which the plaintiffs did not attend, the board voted to approve the variance. T then submitted an application to the town's planning and zoning commission for a special permit to allow the sale of alcohol at the property. After a public hearing, at which B spoke on the record and claimed that the underlying variance was void, the commission approved the special permit application. The plaintiffs appealed the commission's decision to the Superior Court, claiming, inter alia, that the variance was void, that the commission should not have relied on the variance in determining whether to grant the special permit, and that the board lacked the authority to grant the variance. The trial court denied the appeal, and the plaintiffs, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court. Held that the plaintiffs' failure to appeal from the decision of the board that granted the application for the variance rendered their opposition to the commission's decision to grant the special permit an impermissible collateral attack on the validity of the variance: once the statutory period to appeal the board's decision to grant the variance had expired, the decision became final; moreover, collateral attacks on the decisions of zoning authorities are generally impermissible in light of the need for stability in land use planning and the need for justified reliance by the interes