Zoning. Plain meaning. Use of the "nearest available dictionary." The virgule (“/”) is disjunctive. . A self storage facility is not permitted as “retail sales/rentals” because it is not “retail.”

 In re Tyler Self-Storage Unit Permits,  2011 VT 66 (Burgess, J.)

A group of neighbors in the Town of Dorset appeal from an Environmental Court decision granting Bradford Tyler’s application for a zoning permit for the construction of a self-storage facility in the Dorset Village Commercial District.  Appellants contend that the court erred in determining the rental storage units to be an authorized land use within the applicable Dorset zoning district.  The Environmental Court granted applicant’s proposed use as a permissible  “retail rental.”  Although the court appropriately concluded that the phrase “retail sales/rentals” translates to “retail sales or retail rentals,” we hold that the plain language of the Bylaws' definitiion of "retail" precludes applicant’s self-storage facility.

The first issue in the  this case is whether the word "retail" in the phrase “retail sales/rentals” limits "rentals." The most basic tenet of textual interpretation is that words otherwise undefined are ordinarily defined by reference to the nearest available dictionary.  2A N. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction § 47:7, at 303-04 (7th ed. 2007).  The reliance of the regulations on “any readily available dictionary” reflects common sense and does not lead to unfettered discretion on the part of zoning administratorss -- absent an actual issue of competing and confusing definitions The virgule (“/”) is used “to separate alternatives,” American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 1922 (4th ed. 2006), and is reasonably understood to be disjunctive, another expression of the word “or.”

“Retail,” a specific description, is followed by “sales” and “rentals,” words of more general import.  Thus, the phrase “retail sales/rentals” translates to “retail sales or retail rentals."

The trial court mistakenly concluded that so long as a facility rents to individuals, rather than to industrial customers or on a wholesale basis, the facility is permissible. The term “retail” is defined in the ordinance to mean “a shop or store for the sale of goods, commodities, products or services directly to the consumer, as opposed to wholesale.”  The Bylaws’ drafters intended “retail sales/rentals” to include only small-scale commercial establishments trading in services or in goods, for sale and for rent, as opposed to renting storage space as applicant proposes.  A self-storage facility is not a shop or store, nor does it offer goods or services.

Reversed.