## Facts

- A fraternity’s Alumni Control Board owned and occupied a corner-lot property in Lincoln used as a fraternity house housing 21 men.
- The lot was located in an F-restricted commercial district where fraternities were a permitted use.
- The Board sought a building permit to construct a four-story fraternity house (30 by 60 feet), exceeding the maximum building size allowed on the lot (28 by 48.6 feet).
- The Board requested area variances to reduce required front, rear, and side yards by approximately 5 to 6.4 feet below code minimums.
- The zoning code required off-street parking on the premises or within 1,200 feet; the Board proposed parking about 1,280 feet away and sought a variance.
- City officials denied the application and variances (building inspector; board of zoning appeals; city council), and the district court affirmed.
- Evidence indicated the property could be developed in compliance with city zoning to house more residents, but full compliance with a mandatory university housing code would reduce feasible occupancy to about 36; the Board asserted it was not economically desirable to build for fewer than 48.

## Issues

1. Whether the applicant proved “practical difficulties or unnecessary hardship” sufficient to justify variances from yard and off-street parking distance requirements.
2. Whether economic undesirability of a smaller-capacity project and compliance pressures from a university housing code constitute a hardship or practical difficulty warranting municipal zoning variances.

## Decision

- The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s judgment, leaving in place the City’s denial of the requested variances.
- The court held the applicant failed to show the required practical difficulties or unnecessary hardship.
- The court rejected economic preference and the need to satisfy an external university housing code as grounds for variances where a reasonable, code-compliant use remained available.

## Legal Principles

- Area variances (yard, bulk, and parking requirements) require a showing of practical difficulties (and, under the ordinance, unnecessary hardship), not merely a preferred project design or increased profitability.
- Qualifying hardship or practical difficulty must arise from conditions of the property itself and must distinguish the parcel from similarly situated properties subject to the same zoning rules.
- Economic inconvenience or reduced profitability, standing alone, does not justify a variance when the property can be reasonably used in compliance with the zoning ordinance.
- Regulatory requirements imposed by a separate institution do not, by themselves, create zoning hardship requiring a municipality to relax generally applicable zoning standards.
- Zoning authorities may deny variances to preserve the comprehensive zoning scheme when the requested relief would materially relax uniform yard and parking controls.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Lincoln’s refusal to grant yard and parking-distance variances for a larger fraternity house because the asserted difficulties stemmed from economic preference and an external university housing code, not from property-specific conditions preventing a reasonable, zoning-compliant use.


Alumni Control Bd. v. City of Lincoln, 137 N.W.2d 800 (Neb. 1965)