## Facts

- Ronda Realty Corporation owned a 21-unit apartment building in Chicago and sought a permit to remodel it into 53 apartments.
- The Chicago zoning ordinance required off-street parking on the same lot for apartment buildings at a ratio of one space per three apartments.
- Ronda’s permit application represented that the premises would provide off-street parking for 18 automobiles, and the commissioner of buildings issued the remodeling permit.
- Thirteen tenants appealed to the zoning board of appeals, asserting the lot had space for only eight automobiles and that the permit violated the parking ratio requirement.
- After a hearing and site view, the zoning board found inadequate on-lot parking and revoked the permit.
- Ronda sought administrative review in the Circuit Court of Cook County and challenged the ordinance provision as unconstitutional; the circuit court decided the matter as a question of law and declared the provision unconstitutional as discriminatory.
- The tenants and city officials appealed directly to the Illinois Supreme Court based on the ordinance’s validity and public interest.

## Issues

1. Whether the ordinance’s off-street parking requirement, applied only to apartment buildings and not to other comparable high-occupancy uses, was an arbitrary classification that violated equal protection and due process.
2. Whether, upon a finding of unconstitutionality, the zoning board’s revocation of the permit could stand.

## Decision

- The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s judgment.
- The court held the ordinance provision unconstitutional and void because it imposed a parking burden on apartment buildings alone while exempting other similarly situated uses, making the classification arbitrary and discriminatory.
- Because the invalid provision was the basis for the board’s action, the revocation of the permit was properly set aside.

## Legal Principles

- Municipal zoning regulations must be a reasonable exercise of the police power and must bear a real and substantial relation to public health, safety, morals, or general welfare.
- A legislative classification in a zoning ordinance must rest on a reasonable basis; singling out one use for special burdens while exempting comparable uses that create the same public conditions is unconstitutional discrimination.
- Even when the regulatory objective (reducing street congestion and parking problems) is legitimate, the means chosen cannot impose arbitrary burdens on a limited class of property owners.

## Conclusion

The court invalidated Chicago’s apartment-only off-street parking requirement as an arbitrary and discriminatory zoning classification, affirmed the judgment declaring the provision void, and upheld the setting aside of the permit revocation that depended on that invalid provision.


Ronda Realty Corp. v. Lawton, 414 Ill. 313, 111 N.E.2d 310 (Ill. 1953)