Hatboro Auto Shop Loses Commonwealth Court Appeal Over Zoning

HATBORO, PA — A state appellate court panel affirmed a Montgomery County Court judge’s ruling upholding a Hatboro Zoning Hearing Board decision that denied a variance sought by an auto body shop to operate on a local property.

A three-judge Commonwealth Court panel this week found no error in a trial court's decision to uphold a February 2019 decision by the zoning hearing board in Hatboro, which denied an application by RAV Collision Services seeking to run its business on a property owned by local businessman Joseph Doyle.

A state court judge in Montgomery County, which took up the appeal, subsequently upheld the zoning hearing board’s decision to deny RAV’s request to operate its auto shop as a continuation of a nonconforming use on Doyle’s property.

Doyle, who had purchased his borough property in the early 1980s, operated Joseph J. Doyle Machine Tool Sales, Inc., a heavy equipment business, on his property since that time, and had been grandfathered to use the property that way even though zoning had changed over the years to the point where the business was no longer an approved use at that location.

A timeline of events provided by the court show that RAV began leasing land across from Doyle’s property in 2014, but eventually desired additional space because of business expansion and wanted to secure a lease on Doyle’s land to use his property for the auto business.

The auto repair shop was not a permitted use on Doyle’s property so RAV sought a determination from the local zoning hearing board that its business was a lawful continuation of the grandfathered machine sales business, according to the July 15 Commonwealth Court opinion.

Public hearings were held in Hatboro on the matter in December 2018 and January 2019, the record shows.

The zoning board ultimately determined that the auto repair business was not a continuation of an existing nonconforming use of the property housing the machine sales business. It also ruled that RAV had not met the burden needed to obtain a variance to operate the business at the property.

RAV filed an appeal in state court, but a Montgomery County judge sided with the zoning board.

RAV then appealed to Commonwealth Court, arguing that the zoning board abused its discretion in determining that the proposed use of operating an auto repair shop was not a continuation of Doyle’s existing nonconforming use to operate his machine sales business.

Last week, the middle-tier appeals court said that neither Doyle (who has since passed away), nor RAV cited any case law to support their assertion that a machine sales shop is a “sufficiently similar use to an automobile repair shop use to permit a continuation of a nonconforming use.”

“Although auto repairs and machine sales uses are contained in a broader category of uses, here automotive and allied sales and services, they remain different uses, as Applicant’s [RAV’s] counsel admitted,” the Commonwealth Court panel wrote.

The panel also found no error in the zoning board’s conclusion that RAV failed to prove its case for a variance.