Takeaway
In short, this case confirms that a dimensional variance may be justified when setbacks leave a permitted residential lot without any practical building site, even if limited agricultural use remains theoretically available.
Donald and Mary Miller owned an irregular, narrow 2.8-acre lot in Lower Salford Township’s R-1A Residence District. The district permitted both single-family homes and agricultural uses, but required 75-foot front and rear yards, 40-foot side yards, and a separate 40-foot road setback. Applied together, those requirements left no practical building envelope: at its widest, the lot could accommodate a dwelling less than ten feet deep.
The Millers sought a dimensional variance reducing the rear-yard setback from 75 feet to 40 feet so they could build a 58-by-42-foot single-family home. Neighbors Philip and Babette Detwiler, whose historic Mennonite home stood across the street, opposed the application. The Zoning Hearing Board granted the variance, finding that the lot would otherwise face “terminal sterility” and that the proposal would cause no discernible harm to neighboring properties. The Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, without taking additional evidence, affirmed. The Detwilers appealed to the Commonwealth Court.
Issue #1
Whether the inability to build a residence created an unnecessary hardship when the lot could allegedly still be used for agriculture.
Holding
Yes. The setback requirements imposed an unnecessary hardship because they made reasonable residential development impossible and limiting this residentially situated lot to limited agricultural use would render it practically valueless.
Reasoning
Section 910.2 of the Municipalities Planning Code permits a variance when it is necessary to enable a reasonable use of property. Although agricultural uses were permitted in the R-1A district, the ordinance’s definition of agriculture focused on cultivating soil and raising or harvesting its products. The court noted that the limited activities on the Millers’ lot—hay removal by a local farmer and use for some farm animals—might not even qualify as agriculture under that definition.
Even assuming some agricultural use was available, the Millers could not reasonably be compelled to retain that use. Given the lot’s size and physical characteristics, restricting it to agriculture would make it practically valueless. Under Pennsylvania variance law, that practical loss of value itself constitutes unnecessary hardship.
The surrounding context reinforced the hardship finding. The district was zoned residential, and the record showed that most neighboring land was used residentially rather than agriculturally. The Board could therefore reasonably infer that this isolated lot would be undesirable and unmarketable for agricultural purposes.
The Millers sought only a dimensional variance, not permission for a prohibited use. A single-family dwelling was expressly permitted in the district. Because the cumulative front, rear, side, and road setbacks made construction of a home impossible—or allowed a structure less than ten feet deep—the dimensional regulations created an unnecessary hardship.
Issue #2
Whether the Millers’ hardship was self-inflicted because they knew the zoning restrictions when they acquired the lot and owned adjoining parcels.
Holding
No. Knowledge of zoning restrictions alone does not make a hardship self-inflicted, and the Millers did not create the lot’s unusual configuration or cause the dimensional problem.
Reasoning
A purchaser’s advance knowledge of zoning restrictions does not, by itself, bar a variance. A hardship is self-inflicted where an owner paid an inflated price in anticipation that a hoped-for variance would justify the purchase. The Detwilers made no such allegation, and the property’s long ownership within the Miller family suggested the contrary.
The lot had remained an unimproved parcel with the same dimensions since its creation in 1960. Thus, the Millers had not altered the lot or otherwise caused the irregular configuration that made compliance with the setbacks impossible.
Although the Millers owned adjacent lots, combining those lots with the disputed parcel would not solve the setback problem. Only land to the rear could remedy the dimensional deficiency, and its owner was not interested in selling. The trial court misstated the location of the Millers’ adjoining parcels, but that mistake was harmless because merger would not have provided relief.
Issue #3
Whether the rear-yard variance would adversely affect the public health, safety, or welfare by harming the historic character or value of the Detwilers’ property.
Holding
No. The Detwilers offered no evidence of a public harm, and the proposed rear-yard relief did not show any injury to their historic home across the street.
Reasoning
The Detwilers’ objections amounted to an unsupported preference that no house be built across from their home. Their testimony did not identify a concrete effect on health, safety, welfare, historic status, or property value; it instead reflected their personal objection to the presence of a structure.
The claimed historic impact was especially unpersuasive because the Detwilers’ home lay across the street from the front of the Millers’ lot, while the variance concerned only the rear-yard setback. The front yard separating the two properties would remain compliant. The Board therefore could conclude that the variance would create no discernible adverse consequence for neighboring properties or the public.