As we explained in our case summary, space counts as open space under the New York City Zoning Resolution if it is “accessible to and usable by all persons occupying a dwelling unit or a rooming unit on the zoning lot.” The question in this case was whether space qualified as open space under this definition, even if it was open only to residents of a single building on a multibuilding zoning lot. In a 4-3 decision, the Court (Feinman, J.) granted deference to the agency that administers the Resolution—the City Board of Standards and Appeals (“BSA”)—and held that the space would count as open space if it was open to residents of only a single building. Judge Wilson dissented in an opinion joined by Judge Fahey and Judge Rivera.
As the majority noted, the BSA interpreted the definition of open space to mean that, to qualify as open space, space must at least be open to all residents of a single building on a multibuilding zoning lot. The majority accorded deference to that interpretation of the definition because of the “complex set of cross-references and interlocking provisions” in the definition. The BSA was “most familiar” with the “statutory edifice” comprising the City’s zoning laws, the majority explained, and was therefore “well placed to understand how the various parts of the statute fit together.” Its interpretation should therefore be accorded deference.
In the majority’s view, legislative history also supported the BSA’s interpretation. An early draft of the Resolution would have required open space to be open to all residents on a zoning lot; the more “precise and complex” definition actually employed in the Resolution showed that its drafters had rejected the more “simplistic formulation” reflected in the earlier draft. In any event, the majority explained that the Resolution’s drafters did not contemplate multibuilding lots like the ones at issue in this case because they did not exist at the time the Resolution was drafted. This gave added reason for deference to the BSA’s resolution of this “unanticipated” problem.
The dissent would have interpreted the Resolution’s definition of open space to encompass only space that is accessible to the residents of the entire zoning lot, not just a single building. In the dissent’s view, this interpretation was the most natural reading of the Resolution’s text. The BSA’s interpretation, in the dissent’s view, was unauthorized policy-making better suited to a “community meeting” or a “class on urban planning.”
In the dissent’s view, the BSA’s interpretation was not entitled to deference. This case presented an “issue of pure statutory interpretation,” the majority explained, and the rule was clear that administrative agencies are entitled to no deference on such pure questions of law. To be sure, the dissent allowed that deference might be warranted on a pure question of statutory where the statute at issue was “pure gibberish.” But deference was not required in interpreting a statute merely because it was “complicated” or used “words that refer to other words,” as the majority claimed here. The extensive use of defined terms actually made the case for deference weaker in the dissent’s view: defined terms made the Resolution less ambiguous, and thus made courts less reliant on the BSA’s practical experience in understanding its meaning. That did not mean that the dissent “fanc[ied] itself as a land-use expert,” as the majority had charged; it meant simply that the dissent was exercising its “modest expertise in interpreting statutes,” which the dissent emphasized was “all that [was] at issue here.”