Cameo Park Homes, Inc. v. Planning & Zoning Comm‪.‬

The plaintiff owns about 19.86 acres of vacant land situated in an RS-3 district in Stratford. Under 4.2 of the Stratford zoning regulations, the uses in an RS-3 district are restricted primarily to one-family dwellings on lots having a minimum area of 10,000 square feet. See Stratford Zoning Regs. 2.1, 4.1.1 (1957). Section 5.4.2 of the regulations provides, however, that in such a district garden apartment developments covering not more than twenty acres ""may be approved as special cases as provided in Section 20 of these regulations."" A garden apartment development is defined as ""a group of two or more residence buildings, each of the buildings of which shall include not less than four . . . and not more than nine . . . separate dwelling units, which shall occupy with their accessory buildings not more than 25% of the tract of land or plot which they occupy."" A dwelling unit as used in the definition means ""a suite of rooms . . . arranged, intended, designed for, or used as a place of residence of a single family of not more than five . . . persons or a group of not to exceed five . . . individuals living together cooperatively."" Stratford Zoning Regs. 5.4.1 (1957). The regulations designate the uses defined as ""special cases,"" of which garden apartments is one, as ""permitted uses in the districts under which they are named, subject to approval by the [Town Planning and Zoning] Commission as to each specific use"" and state that ""[e]ach of these uses is declared to be of such peculiar and unusual nature in its effect on an area that in order to have it comply with the purposes of the zoning regulations it is necessary to consider it as a special case."" 20.2. The regulations require that applications for approval of all uses named as special cases shall be made to the town planning and zoning commission. 20.1. The function of the commission in passing on such an application is defined in 20.2.1