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Can I Park Here? Second Department Takes the Driver’s Seat in Recent Parking Cases

October 16, 2017

Last month, the Appellate Division, Second Department, issued two interesting opinions concerning parking. One involved a parking variance and the other involved a restrictive covenant.

Here are the details!

No Parking

In Bonefish Grill, LLC v Zoning Board of Appeals of the Village of Rockville Centre, 2017 N.Y. Slip Op. 006643 [2d Dept September 27, 2017], a restaurant leased property at 340 Sunrise Highway. It was going to demolish an existing structure and replace it with a 5,400 square foot restaurant. The Village Zoning Code required 54 off-street parking spaces for the proposed restaurant. It had none.

The same landlord owned the adjoining property, 330 Sunrise Highway. The restaurant tenant proposed a merger of the two lots in order to take advantage of an exception in the Village Zoning Code that essentially allowed a municipal lot to substitute for the off-street parking for “interior restaurants that abut municipal parking fields.” The 330 Sunrise Highway parcel abutted a municipal parking lot, 340 Sunrise Highway did not.

A building permit was issued for the restaurant based on the merger representation. Just as the construction was nearing completion, the Building Department learned the merger of the two parcels never occurred. The Building Department refused to issue a certificate of occupancy until the restaurant obtained a parking variance. The restaurant entered into a license agreement that gave it access to 40 exclusive parking spaces next door from 4 PM to 12:30 AM weekdays. The parking variance was granted by the zoning board but the board imposed restrictions on the restaurant’s operating hours, tying them to the hours in the license agreement. It also required mandatory valet parking. The restaurant was unhappy with these restrictions and sued.

Although the restaurant prevailed at the trial level, it lost at the appellate court, which found that limiting the hours of operations to coincide with its access to the 40 parking spaces was proper. The restriction was aimed at protecting surrounding businesses and the expected increase in traffic congestion and parking problems.

Parking

In Fleetwood Chateau Owners Corp., v Fleetwood Garage Corp., 2017 NY Slip Op. 06431 [2d Dept September 13, 2017], the owner of an apartment building sued a commercial parking garage located on an adjoining parcel to enforce a restrictive covenant contained in a 1924 deed. That restrictive covenant prohibited the construction of nonresidential structures including garages unless the garages were for the exclusive use of occupants of any building built on the property.

In 1929, an apartment building was built on one part of the property. In 1931, a private parking garage was built on another part of the property. The entire site was sold at least twice after that. When the entire site was sold in 1988, the deed failed to mention the 1924 restrictive covenant.

The next purchaser subdivided the property. In 1990, the apartment building portion of the property was sold to Fleetwood Chateau Owners Corp. In 1991, the parking garage portion of the property was sold to Fleetwood Garage Corp. which intended to use it as a commercial parking garage.  Neither of these deeds referenced the 1924 restrictive covenant. Neither Fleetwood entity was a party to the 1924 deed nor mentioned in it as a beneficiary.

The Court noted that restrictive covenants, which place restraints on servient properties in favor of dominant parcels, are strictly construed against parties seeking to enforce them as they encumber the use of real property. The Court further noted that since it was not a party to the 1924 deed and was not mentioned in the deed as a beneficiary, Fleetwood Chateau Owners Corp. had to demonstrate the existence of a common plan or scheme of building development in order to enforce the restrictive covenant.

The Court found that there was no common development plan created for the owners of the subdivided lots.   The Court found no evidence that in 1924, when the land was sold as one parcel, that there was any obligation to subdivide the site. As a result, the Court found that “the covenant cannot be said to have benefitted any part of the land burdened by it.” The Court reasoned that the common grantor to the Fleetwood entities had owned the entire site and was free to do whatever it chose with the property except as against the 1924 grantee who had placed the restriction in the 1924 deed or those that “stood in his shoes.” As the Fleetwood entities solely derived their interest from the 1990/1991 grantee, and their deeds did not contain any restrictive covenant, “the original covenant is not enforceable as between” them. As a result, Fleetwood Chateau Owners Corp. had no standing to enforce the covenant and the parking garage was able to continue operating.