Ridgewood Homeowners Association v. Mignacca

Summary

The Supreme Court of Rhode Island held that a restrictive covenant prohibiting the keeping of animals and structures for housing them barred homeowners from keeping a miniature horse on their property. The court also held that the Cranston zoning code's ten-acre requirement superseded an inconsistent city ordinance and that the restrictive covenant controlled regardless of zoning permission. The court reversed the Superior Court's judgment in the covenant action and quashed or vacated the judgment concerning the zoning appeal, remanding for appropriate proceedings.

Holdings

1. Covenant 8 unambiguously prohibited the Mignaccas from keeping a miniature horse and maintaining a structure to house it on their Ridgewood Estates property.
2. The Mignaccas failed to establish waiver, estoppel, laches, or selective enforcement sufficient to bar the association's enforcement of covenant 8.
3. A party seeking to enforce a restrictive covenant need not establish monetary damages or individualized hardship to obtain injunctive relief.
4. The Superior Court exceeded its limited authority by conducting a view, obtaining an ordinance sua sponte, and relying on evidence from the consolidated covenant case in deciding the zoning appeal.
5. The zoning-board decision could not be sustained because the board supplied no findings of fact or conclusions of law sufficient to permit judicial review; the matter had to be remanded for an adequate record.
6. A zoning ordinance cannot destroy the force and effect of a restrictive covenant; the restrictive covenant would control even if the zoning code permitted the horse.
7. The Supreme Court would not consider the argument that keeping the horse was an accessory use because the argument was not properly presented to the zoning board.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the subdivision's restrictive covenant prohibiting animals, livestock, or poultry and structures for keeping animals barred the Mignaccas from keeping a miniature horse and constructing a stable.
2. Whether alleged nonenforcement of other covenant violations established waiver, estoppel, laches, or selective enforcement preventing enforcement of the livestock covenant.
3. Whether the association was required to prove monetary damages or hardship to obtain equitable enforcement of the restrictive covenant.
4. Whether the Superior Court exceeded its authority by conducting an independent view, obtaining an ordinance sua sponte, and commingling evidence from the covenant action with the zoning appeal.
5. Whether the Superior Court properly affirmed or otherwise upheld the zoning variance when the zoning board supplied no findings of fact or conclusions of law sufficient for judicial review.
6. Whether the Mignaccas could raise for the first time in the Superior Court an argument that keeping the horse was an accessory use requiring no variance.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded