## Facts

- Donald and Mary Miller owned an approximately 2.8-acre parcel in an R-1A Residence District in Lower Salford Township, where a single-family detached dwelling was a permitted use.
- The zoning ordinance required 75-foot front and rear yards and 40-foot side yards.
- The Millers asserted that, given the lot’s configuration, applying both 75-foot setbacks eliminated any practical building area for a residence.
- The Millers applied to the Zoning Hearing Board for a dimensional variance to reduce the rear-yard setback from 75 feet to 40 feet to permit construction of a residence.
- Philip and Babette Detwiler, owners of a historic dwelling across the street listed on the National Register of Historic Places, objected, claiming the proposed construction would harm the historic value and character of the area.
- After hearing, the Board granted the variance, finding the lot could not be reasonably used for residential construction without relief and finding no discernible adverse impact on neighbors or the public health, safety, and welfare.
- The Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County affirmed the Board’s decision.
- The Detwilers appealed to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

## Issues

1. Whether the Board committed an error of law or abused its discretion in finding “unnecessary hardship” supporting a dimensional variance from the rear-yard requirement.
2. Whether the asserted hardship was self-inflicted or instead resulted from unique physical characteristics of the property.
3. Whether the variance granted was the minimum relief necessary and whether it would harm the public interest or the neighborhood, including alleged impacts on a nearby historic property.

## Decision

- The Commonwealth Court affirmed the order of the Court of Common Pleas, thereby upholding the Board’s grant of the rear-yard dimensional variance.
- The court held the Board neither abused its discretion nor committed an error of law in concluding the Millers satisfied the variance criteria.
- The court accepted the Board’s determination that the lot’s physical configuration, combined with the setback rules, left no practical residential building area absent a variance.
- The court concluded the hardship was not self-created and that the variance was limited to the minimum necessary relief.
- The court rejected objections grounded in asserted aesthetic or historic impacts where no concrete evidence showed detriment to public health, safety, welfare, or the neighborhood.

## Legal Principles

- A dimensional variance may be granted when strict compliance with area or setback requirements, due to unique physical conditions of the property, creates unnecessary hardship by preventing reasonable use for a permitted purpose.
- The applicant must show the hardship is not self-inflicted and is tied to the property’s conditions rather than personal circumstances.
- A variance must be the minimum modification necessary to afford relief while preserving the ordinance’s overall purposes.
- Generalized objections, including aesthetic concerns or claimed effects on historic character, do not defeat a variance without evidence of material harm to public health, safety, welfare, or neighborhood impacts recognized under the governing criteria.
- Where courts review a zoning hearing board’s decision on an existing record, the board’s findings are upheld absent an error of law or an abuse of discretion, including findings lacking substantial evidentiary support.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a rear-yard dimensional variance because the lot’s configuration and required setbacks eliminated any practical building area for an otherwise permitted single-family home, the hardship was not self-created, the relief was limited to what was necessary, and objectors did not prove a legally cognizable detriment to the public interest or surrounding properties.


Detwiler v. Zoning Hearing Bd. of Lower Salford Twp., 141 Pa. Commw. 597, 596 A.2d 1156 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 1991)