## Facts

- Eric and Patricia Kosalka applied for a municipal permit to create a nine–recreational vehicle trailer campground on land owned by Eric Kosalka’s mother in the Town of Georgetown’s shoreland zone.
- The shoreland zoning ordinance divided regulated land into a Resource Protection District (RPD), General Development District (GDD), and Limited Residential–Recreational District (LRRD).
- Under the ordinance, land in the 100-year floodplain was generally within the RPD, except for areas that were “currently developed.”
- The ordinance’s text suggested the proposed campground site was within the RPD because it lay in the floodplain, but the official zoning map placed the site in the LRRD.
- The ordinance provided that when there was uncertainty about district boundary lines, the Board of Zoning Appeals (ZBA) was the final authority on the boundary location.
- The Planning Board denied the application, concluding the site was in the RPD (where campgrounds were not allowed) and that the proposal failed a conditional-use criterion requiring developments to “conserve natural beauty.”
- On appeal, the ZBA determined the property was in the LRRD (where campgrounds could be approved as a conditional use) but still denied the permit based on failure to “conserve natural beauty.”
- After Superior Court proceedings and a remand, the ZBA again denied the permit under the “conserve natural beauty” criterion, and the Superior Court affirmed.
- The applicants appealed, challenging the constitutionality of the “conserve natural beauty” standard; abutting landowners cross-appealed, disputing the district classification.

## Issues

1. Whether substantial evidence supported the ZBA’s determination that the property was located in the LRRD rather than the RPD, making a campground eligible for conditional-use review.
2. Whether a conditional-use requirement that a project “conserve natural beauty,” without further definition or criteria, is an unconstitutional standardless delegation of legislative authority in violation of due process.

## Decision

- The Maine Supreme Judicial Court vacated the Superior Court’s judgment.
- The court held the record supported the ZBA’s determination that the site fell within the LRRD, and the landowners’ cross-appeal was denied.
- The court held the “conserve natural beauty” conditional-use requirement was an unconstitutional, standardless delegation that violated due process and was invalid.

## Legal Principles

- Zoning and conditional-use standards must be sufficiently definite to give applicants fair notice of what is required and to limit arbitrary or discriminatory decisionmaking.
- An ordinance that authorizes permit approval or denial based on broad, undefined aesthetic judgments, without objective criteria or guiding factors, can be an unconstitutional standardless delegation of legislative authority.
- When an ordinance assigns a board of appeals final authority to resolve uncertainty about zoning district boundaries, courts will generally defer to the board’s boundary determination if supported by substantial evidence in the record.
- Aesthetic considerations in land-use regulation are permissible only when implemented through definite, reviewable standards rather than open-ended phrases that leave officials unconstrained.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the zoning board’s determination that the parcel was in the district where campgrounds could be considered as a conditional use, but invalidated the ordinance’s “conserve natural beauty” criterion because it provided no ascertainable standards and therefore violated due process by delegating unguided discretion to local decisionmakers.


Kosalka v. Town of Georgetown, 752 A.2d 183 (Me. 2000)