![]() Perhaps more astounding than that headline-making part of the ruling is the High Court’s resounding rejection of how the Commonwealth Court has been applying the zoning law in the Commonwealth. PA Supreme Court comes down hard on Commonwealth Court The Court examined the goals of zoning in general, and more specifically in creating residential zoning districts, explaining that the underlying purpose of creating neighborhoods and a stable community environment support the conclusion that the transient nature of short-term rentals confound this goal and there cannot be a permitted use in such residential zoning districts. In making its ruling, the Court discussed how most zoning ordinances define the term “family,” acknowledging that many have adopted the phrase “single-housekeeping unit,” which has become a widely-accepted term of art that the courts have defined as requiring the occupants of a home to live and behave like a family in a character that is permanent and not transitory. The Court stated that “the purely transient use of a house is not a permitted use in a residential zoning district limiting use to single-family homes by ‘a single housekeeping unit.’” ![]() The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in reversing the Commonwealth Court’s ruling, decided that short-term transient rentals (such as those typically found on websites such as Airbnb and VRBO) were not a permitted use in the residential zoning district at issue in the case. ![]() Zoning Hearing Bd., and in the process made for a lot of happy municipalities throughout the Commonwealth. ![]() On April 26, 2019, the Court issued its decision in the case of Slice of Life, LLC v. I n a recent decision, the PA Supreme Court reversed the Commonwealth Court’s ruling and in doing so, state that Airbnb-type rentals are against residential zoning laws.īack in March 2018, I wrote about the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to review a case involving a now-prevalent issue confronted by municipalities across the country…the influx of Airbnb’s in their residential neighborhoods. ![]()
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