## Facts

- Gerald G. Speach bought a waterfront parcel on Graham’s Creek in the Town of Henderson, an area lined with commercial and private boathouses.
- The lot was substandard under town zoning requirements for minimum lot area and width.
- Speach applied to the Town’s Zoning Board of Appeals for area variances to replace an existing single-slip boathouse with a larger boathouse.
- Adjacent owners Lawrence M. Sasso and another adjoining owner objected, alleging the project would impair light, air, and view and could affect foundations and septic systems due to construction and drainage.
- The Zoning Board granted the requested area variances.
- The neighbors filed a CPLR article 78 proceeding seeking to annul the variance determination.

## Issues

1. Whether, after the 1991 amendments to Town Law § 267-b(3), an area-variance applicant must still prove “practical difficulties,” including “significant economic injury,” as a prerequisite to relief.
2. Whether the statutory factors in Town Law § 267-b(3) are the exclusive criteria for granting an area variance.
3. Whether the Zoning Board’s grant of area variances had a rational basis and substantial evidence under the amended statute.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed the Appellate Division and reinstated the Zoning Board’s determination granting the area variances.
- The court held that Town Law § 267-b(3) displaced the prior judicial “practical difficulties” test for area variances.
- The court ruled that an applicant need not provide “dollars and cents” proof of economic hardship or significant economic injury to obtain an area variance.
- Applying the statutory balancing factors, the court concluded the Board’s determination was supported by the record and entitled to judicial deference.

## Legal Principles

- For town area variances, Town Law § 267-b(3) supplies the controlling standard: the board must weigh the applicant’s benefit against the detriment to the health, safety, and welfare of the neighborhood or community.
- The relevant considerations are the factors enumerated in § 267-b(3) (including neighborhood character impacts, feasible alternatives, substantiality, physical/environmental effects, and whether the difficulty is self-created), and those factors are to be balanced.
- “Self-created” difficulty is not an absolute bar to an area variance; it is one factor in the balancing analysis.
- Courts reviewing zoning board determinations do not apply a separate hardship threshold for area variances and will uphold a determination that has a rational basis and is supported by substantial evidence.

## Conclusion

The Court of Appeals held that the post-1991 statutory balancing test in Town Law § 267-b(3) is the exclusive framework for town area variances, rejecting any requirement that applicants independently prove “practical difficulties” or significant economic injury, and it reinstated the zoning board’s variance grant under deferential review.


Matter of Sasso v. Osgood, 86 N.Y.2d 374 (N.Y. 1995)