2010 Zoning and Planning Law Report Awards
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JANUARY 2011 | Vol. 34 | No. 1 THE 2010 ZiPLeRs: THE SIXTEENTH ANNUAL ZONING AND PLANNING LAW REPORT LAND USE DECISION AWARDS Dwight H. Merriam, FAICP, CRE Dwight H. Merriam is a lawyer with the law firm of Robinson & Cole, LLP, in Hartford, Connecticut, where he practices land use and real estate law. He is Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of State and Local Government Law, Past President and a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, a member of the Anglo- American Real Property Institute, a Counselor of Real Estate, and Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. He is the author of The Complete Guide to Zoning (2005), available in bookstores everywhere and through www.dwightmerriam.com, where you can also get links to his blogs. The award illustration is by Ray Andrews, a former partner at Robinson & Cole, LLP. You’ll want to post a few of these tidbits on your Face- book page and impress your long list of friends with these questions and the answers… • What zoning applies to 16-foot high legs? • When is a 26-foot tall Paul Bunyan a flagpole? • How do you serve a cease and desist order on a bee? • Which President of the United States is the first person to receive a ZiPLeR posthumously? • Is an Oldsmobile 88 a junk car, cactus planter, or First Amendment-protected expression? • What happens when you spray paint “Screwed by the town of Cary” across the second floor front of your house…in Cary? Reprinted from Zoning and Planning Law Report, Volume 34, No. 1 with permission of West. For more information about this publication, please visit www.west.thomson.com. 41048042 JANUARY 2011 | Vol. 34 | No. 1 Zoning and Planning Law Report • Okay, got that last one, then try this—what happens when you put signs in your yard that say “$10,000 to take a crap”? • Is it a home business to cavort naked around a house 24/7 on the internet for a fee? • Is pole dancing a performing art exempt from <AT> Use for article title.Land Use Control sales tax? Implementation Plans - The Child of More Intercourse Between Land use and Environmental • Is your beloved potbellied pig a pet? Law ..........................................................................1 • What can we learn from Family Guy about zoning? <H1> Use for first-level headings ...................................... 1 <H1> Use for first-level headings ...................................... 1 The ZiPLeRs—A Brief History <H1> Use for First Level Headings .................................... 2 The annual ZiPLeR Awards have now been <H1> Use for First Level Headings .................................... 3 around so long that if you Google “ZiPLeR Awards” <H1> Use for First Level Heading ...................................... 4 you will get two hits. Too busy to Google? Off-line reading this august publication? Then, here’s the sound-bite background. ZiPLeR is the diminutive for “Zoning and Plan- ning Law Report,” kind of like “Peg” for “Marga- ret.” Back in the day it was West Publishing, before Thomson West, before the current Thomson Re- uters, and the Zoning and Planning Law Report was the established primary source of the most recent in- Editorial Director Tim Thomas, Esq. formation on all things planning and zoning. Contributing Editors That position of being the first has been eclipsed by Patricia E. Salkin, Esq. technology, but the Zoning and Planning Law Report Lora Lucero, Esq. has remained the preeminent source of thoughtful, as Publishing Specialist Robert Schantz contrasted with instantaneous, analysis (despite the Electronic Composition annual blight of the ZiPLeR Awards). In short, your Specialty Composition/Rochester Desktop Publishing Tweets, daily RSS feeds, and instantaneous reports are all good, but join us here each month (except this Zoning and Planning Law Report (USPS# pending) is issued monthly, ex- cept in August, 11 times per year; published and copyrighted by Thomson issue) for information of substance. Reuters, 610 Opperman Drive, P.O. Box 64526, St. Paul, MN 55164-0526. I convinced the editors back then, Bernie Madoff- Application to mail at Periodical rate is pending at St. Paul, MN. style, to let me do one issue, just one, on the more POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Zoning and Planning Law Report, 610 Opperman Drive, P.O. Box 64526, St. Paul MN 55164-0526. unusual cases of the year. They bought it, Matt Cho- lewa and I wrote up the first ZiPLeR Awards, and © 2011 Thomson Reuters ISSN 0161-8113 apparently no one cancelled their subscription in Editorial Offices: 50 Broad Street East, Rochester, NY 14694 protest. That’s a victory of sorts, I guess, in the pub- Tel.: 585-546-5530 Fax: 585-258-3774 lishing business. Customer Service: 610 Opperman Drive, Eagan, MN 55123 Tel.: 800-328-4880 Fax: 612-340-9378 The next year, I simply told them I was continu- ing the series and got away with it. This works. Just This publication was created to provide you with accurate and authoritative information concerning pretend like you’re entitled, and most people will be- the subject matter covered; however, this publication was not necessarily prepared by persons licensed to practice law in a particular jurisdiction. The publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or other lieve you are. A couple of years ago I was at a meet- professional advice and this publication is not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. If you ing in Nashville, came out of the hotel, saw a nice require legal or other expert advice, you should seek the services of a competent attorney or other professional. new Escalade, and just for fun (you who know me will get this) barked at the young valet “Where the 2 © 2011 Thomson Reuters Zoning and Planning Law Report JANUARY 2011 | Vol. 34 | No. 1 @#+”^%# are the keys to my Escalade?” which he Thanks again to our friends in Charleston, Andy promptly plopped into my palm. Only then did I tell Gowder and Trenholm Walker, for hosting us during him of my ruse. Just pretend like you’re entitled. It’s our stay for the awards ceremony. We would like to hard to believe it has now been more than a decade include them on our awards selection committee, but and a half, but here we are again, thanks in large we can’t just now because they have had to re-engi- measure to you, our readers, who keep us amply sup- neer their practices during this development reces- plied with local land use foibles to feed the ZiPLeR sion like so many of us. They are now largely doing beast. Keep those cards and letters coming to dmer- dog bite defense and slip and fall cases, so they are [email protected] and you may see your name in print too far outside the realm of planning and zoning to next year. qualify to be on the committee. Maybe when things We have added a brand new category in this year’s turn around… already bombastic ZiPLeRs—the “Legacy Medal”— Actually, to tell you the truth (doesn’t it make you for a history-making zoning and planning event or wonder when someone, right in the middle of a long initiative that pre-dates our annual award qualifica- explanation, says “to tell you the truth”?—what tion period. This year’s first-time-ever winner—nom- were they doing before that?), there is no committee. inated by my own 15-year-old son, Alexander, who The Thomson Reuters lawyers said I had to ‘fess up literally has grown up with the ZiPLeR Awards as about the supposed committee after all these years. a family franchise and is a devoted ZiPLer follow- Sarbanes-Oxley Title VIII “Corporate and Criminal er—goes to that inspiring phenom of the arts, Family Fraud Accountability Act of 2002” or something like Guy. For those of you who have been with us from that. I alone am the committee. the get-go, it must seem so obvious that a show like I had something like this happen—now this is the Family Guy would be the recipient of such a coveted truth—when an environmental expert for the oppo- award. For you newcomers, you now have a better sition got up at a coastal wetlands hearing, dropped sense of the sophistication and nuanced approach his jacked-up, three-pound Curriculum Vitae (ex- the ZiPLer Awards Committee takes in making its perts don’t seem to have résumés) into the record and choices. (The Legacy Medal is awarded at the end of pontificated on the impending end of the world as this issue.) we knew it if our client’s project got approved. The Last year, you may recall, we held the awards cer- expert was the President of some seemingly big-time emony at the Squat and Gobble Restaurant in Bluff- consulting outfit; let’s call it “World Environmen- ton, South Carolina, and what a night it was. Gov- tal Consulting LLC.” It had at least as impressive a ernor Sanford came by and presented a slide show name. I knew otherwise, so I asked: “Your C.V. [al- of his hiking along the Appalachian Trail. My good- ways talk their lingo] says that you’re the President ness, I’ve hiked the trail in the White Mountains of of World Environmental Consulting LLC, right?” New Hampshire and it was nothing like part of the “Yes” he answered. “How long have you been Presi- trail the Guv covered. dent?” “15 years.” “Do you have offices internation- And being in South Carolina before the elections, ally?” “No,” he answered, “Just in this country.” I we had Alvin Greene, the previously-unknown Dem- asked, “Just here, as it says, in Bakersville?” “Yes” ocratic candidate for the U.S.