500, LLC v. City of Minneapolis
| Decision Date | 25 June 2012 |
| Docket Number | A11-1705 |
| Parties | 500, LLC, Appellant, v. City of Minneapolis, Respondent. |
| Court | Minnesota Court of Appeals |
This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2010).
Affirmed
Hennepin County District Court
Karl Edward Robinson, Hellmuth & Johnson, Edina, Minnesota (for appellant)
Susan L. Segal, Minneapolis City Attorney, Erik Elof Nilsson, Assistant City Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)
Considered and decided by Larkin, Presiding Judge; Peterson, Judge; and Crippen, Judge.*
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
In this appeal from summary judgment, appellant argues that (a) because the decisions of respondent-city's Heritage Preservation Commission are essentially zoning decisions, a declaratory-judgment action in district court was the appropriate method for challenging the decisions and, therefore, the district court erred in ruling that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the decisions; and (b) the district court erred in ruling that Minn. Stat. § 15.99 does not apply to appellant's application to the Heritage Preservation Commission. We affirm.
Appellant 500, LLC, owns a vacant, four-story building constructed in 1908 that is located in respondent City of Minneapolis. In September 2008, appellant submitted applications for zoning approvals to develop the property into a seven-story office building with parking in the basement and on the first floor. The applications included a floor-area-ratio (FAR) variance application and a site-plan-review application.
The Minneapolis Department of Community Planning and Economic Development Planning Division prepared a report analyzing appellant's applications. The report recommended denying the FAR variance application but approving the site-plan-review application subject to six conditions. In November 2008, appellant submitted a revised application, eliminating the proposed seventh floor, which eliminated the need for a FAR variance, and withdrew its FAR variance application. The revised application included retail display windows on the first floor, which was consistent withone of the conditions in the planning-division report. The planning division determined that the revised application complied with the report's conditions.
At a planning-commission meeting on November 17, 2008, a planning-commission member asked whether the commission had authority to mandate retail or active uses on the first floor. A staff person responded that "our reading of this provision of the ordinance essentially gives the applicant the choice of whether to install active uses at ground level or to include display windows or other types of windows" and opined that the commission "would be stretching the bounds of [its] authority" if it imposed such a requirement.
The planning commission passed a motion "to offer a staff directive . . . that we encourage HPC [Heritage Preservation Commission] staff to look at this as either an interim hold on this to explore its possibilities of designation which has been outlined quite well in the staff report or encourage our colleagues at the HPC to take a look at this property." The staff reports states:
The report listed the following reasons in support of landmark or historic designation: the building has ties to architect C.A.P. Turner, a master engineer/architect, who "was a forerunner in the development of reinforced concrete"; the building was "one of the earliest extant examples in Minneapolis of a flat slab reinforced concrete design by C.A.P. Turner"; the building's large, closely-spaced columns indicated an experimental design; and the building is the only known business building still existing that could be directly attributed to the DeLaittres family, a prominent Minneapolis family from the 19th and 20th centuries.
The planning commission denied appellant's proposed site plan for the following reasons:
The next day, November 18, 2008, at a regularly scheduled HPC meeting, the HPC passed a motion to nominate the property for study and consideration as a potential local historical landmark and directed staff to provide notice and formally present the nomination at the HPC's next meeting on December 2, 2008. An application for nomination that was not signed or dated referred to HPC Chairperson Chad Larson as the nomination applicant. The application also referred to an HPC staff report prepared in connection with a question about whether the property meets any of the criteria for historic designation. At the December 2 meeting, the HPC adopted HPC staff findings regarding the building's historic significance, approved the nomination, established interim protection, nominated the building as a local historic landmark, and directed the planning director to begin a designation study.
While the HPC proceeding was pending, appellant appealed to the city council from the planning-commission's denial of appellant's site-plan application. On January 9, 2009, the city council granted appellant's appeal and approved the site plan. Except for modifying the completion date, the approval included the same conditions that were stated in the planning commission's report. The city council also adopted the findings in the planning commission's report.
On May 6, 2009, appellant applied to the HPC for a certificate of appropriateness, which was necessary for appellant to proceed with its development proposal. At a public hearing on the application, the planning-commission president urged denial of the application based on the absence of active uses on the building's first floor. An HPC staff report was presented at the hearing, which recommended denial of appellant's application for lack of compliance with Secretary of the Interior Standards and Guidelines for historic properties. Also presented at the hearing was a city planner's memorandum stating that the planner had made an error during the earlier site-plan-approval proceeding. The memorandum explained that a codifier's error caused the planner to overlook an ordinance that prohibited first-floor parking without "commercial, residential, office, or hotel uses located between the parking and the public sidewalk." The HPC adopted the staff findings and denied appellant's application. Appellant appealed to the city council, which denied the appeal.
After the historic-designation study was completed, the HPC voted to adopt a resolution recommending that the city council designate the building as a local historic landmark. Following approval of the recommendation by the zoning and planning committee, the city council approved a resolution designating the building as a local historic landmark.
Appellant brought this lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and damages as a result of respondent's decisions to refer the property for historic designation and to deny appellant's application for a certificate of appropriateness. Appellant asserted that respondent acted arbitrarily and capriciously and that the decisions were notsupported by substantial evidence. Appellant also asserted claims for violation of Minn. Stat. § 15.99 (2010), violation of due-process and equal-protection rights, and a taking of property without just compensation. Respondent moved for summary judgment, arguing that the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over appellant's claims. The district court granted respondent's motion. This appeal followed.
On appeal from a summary judgment, appellate courts review de novo whether a genuine issue of material fact exists and whether the...
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