## Facts

- Lower Gwynedd Township adopted Ordinance 28, creating an “F-1 Limited Industrial District” with detailed development restrictions (including an overall plan, unified design and landscaping, minimum 25-acre size, buffer strips, 200-foot setbacks from streets and property lines, and a 10% building-coverage cap).
- Ordinance 28 did not map or predesignate any land as F-1; it established a process allowing landowners to apply to rezone their property to F-1, subject to planning review and a public hearing.
- Ordinance 28 also stated that the Board of Supervisors could impose “particular requirements” or additional “reasonable conditions” concerning suitability of an F-1 district in the neighborhood.
- Moore Products Company sought to rezone a large tract from residential to F-1 to build an industrial plant and a sewage treatment facility.
- After notice and public hearings, and despite a petition signed by about 300 opposing residents, the supervisors adopted Ordinance 34, rezoning Moore’s tract to F-1 and approving the submitted plan.
- Neighboring property owners (including Eves, Moore, and the Sisters of Mercy) appealed to the Zoning Board of Adjustment, challenging Ordinances 28 and 34 as unconstitutional and beyond the township’s statutory zoning authority; the Board rejected the challenge.
- The Court of Common Pleas affirmed, and the protestants appealed to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

## Issues

1. Whether Ordinance 28’s “flexible selective zoning” scheme—creating an F-1 district without predesignated boundaries and allowing owner-initiated rezoning—was authorized by Pennsylvania zoning enabling legislation.
2. Whether the ordinances unlawfully delegated legislative zoning power to the supervisors through unguided discretion.
3. Whether Ordinance 34’s rezoning of Moore’s tract was arbitrary, unconstitutional, or impermissible spot zoning lacking a sufficient relation to public health, safety, and welfare.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the judgment sustaining the Zoning Board of Adjustment.
- The Court upheld Ordinances 28 and 34 as valid exercises of the township’s zoning power.
- The Court held the scheme did not constitute an unconstitutional delegation because Ordinance 28 supplied detailed standards and the process included planning review and public hearing procedures.
- The Court concluded the rezoning of Moore’s tract was not arbitrary or discriminatory and was not impermissible spot zoning.

## Legal Principles

- A zoning ordinance may create a specialized district with detailed, objective development controls and allow later tract-specific inclusion by subsequent rezoning ordinances, consistent with enabling legislation.
- Discretion afforded to a governing body is not an unlawful delegation when exercised within legislatively prescribed standards and subject to procedural safeguards (such as planning review, notice, and public hearing).
- Zoning enactments are presumed valid; challengers must show that the classification or rezoning is clearly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unrelated to public health, safety, morals, or general welfare.
- A tract-specific rezoning does not amount to impermissible spot zoning when supported by size, conditions, and restrictions that reasonably relate the change to the public welfare rather than solely private benefit.

## Conclusion

Pennsylvania sustained an applicant-initiated, standards-based rezoning method for a limited industrial district, holding that detailed legislative controls and procedural safeguards prevented unlawful delegation and supported the validity of a tract-specific industrial rezoning against spot-zoning and constitutional challenges.


Eves v. Zoning Bd. of Adjustment of Lower Gwynedd Twp., 401 Pa. 211, 164 A.2d 7 (Pa. 1960)