500, LLC v. City of Minneapolis, A11–1705.

• Decision Date: 25 September 2013
• Docket Number: No. A11–1705.,A11–1705.
• Citation: 837 N.W.2d 287
• Parties: 500, LLC, Appellant, v. CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

837 N.W.2d 287

500, LLC, Appellant,

v.CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS, Respondent.

No. A11–1705.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Sept. 25, 2013.

Syllabus by the Court

An application to a heritage-preservation commission for a certificate of appropriateness is a “written request relating to zoning” under Minn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a) (2012).

Karl E. Robinson, Hellmuth & Johnson, PLLC, Edina, MN, for appellant.

Susan L. Segal, Minneapolis City Attorney, Erik E. Nilsson, Darla J. Boggs, Assistant City Attorneys, Minneapolis, MN, for respondent.

OPINION

STRAS, Justice.

The question presented in this case is whether an application to a heritage-preservation commission for a certificate of appropriateness is a “written request relating to zoning” under Minn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a) (2012). If so, then the respondent, City of Minneapolis (“the City”), had only 60 days to “approve or deny” the application for a certificate of appropriateness submitted by the appellant, 500, LLC (“500 LLC”). SeeMinn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a). Because we conclude that an application for a certificate of appropriateness is a “written request relating to zoning” and that the City failed to approve or deny 500 LLC's application within 60 days, we reverse.

I.

500 LLC is a real-estate firm that owns a vacant four-story building (“the property”) located at 500 Third Street North in the warehouse district of Minneapolis. 500 LLC seeks to develop the property into an office building. 500 LLC submitted a site plan application to the City in September 2008 to obtain approval of its proposed development. According to the Minneapolis City Code, the purpose of a site plan application is to allow the City to determine whether a proposed development is “compatible with nearby properties, neighborhood character, natural features and plans adopted by the city council.” Minneapolis, Minn., Code of Ordinances § 530.10 (2013). The MinneapolisCity Council approved 500 LLC's site plan application.

Before the City Council reviewed 500 LLC's site plan application, however, the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission (“the Commission”) nominated the property for designation as a local historic landmark. The Commission's action placed the property under “interim protection,” which prohibits “destruction or inappropriate alteration [of a nominated property] during the designation process” in the absence of a “certificate of appropriateness.” Minneapolis, Minn., Code of Ordinances §§ 599.240, 599.320 (2013).

On May 6, 2009, 500 LLC submitted an application for a certificate of appropriateness to the Commission. Following a public hearing and a series of administrative appeals, the City Council denied the application for a certificate of appropriateness on July 31, 2009. Approximately 10 months later, the City Council approved a resolution designating the property as a local historic landmark. The designation became final and effective on June 5, 2010.¹

In October 2010, 500 LLC commenced this action against the City. In its complaint, 500 LLC alleged, among other things, that the City violated Minn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a), because it failed to approve or deny the application for a certificate of appropriateness within 60 days. SeeMinn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a) (requiring an agency to “approve or deny within 60 days a written request relating to zoning”). 500 LLC further alleged that the City's failure to approve or deny the application resulted in its automatic approval at the end of the 60–day period. See id. (declaring that an agency's failure to approve or deny “a written request relating to zoning” within 60 days results in the automatic approval of the request). 500 LLC sought a declaratory judgment that its “application for [a] Certificate of Appropriateness [was] approved and granted by operation of law.”

At the close of discovery, the district court granted summary judgment to the City.² The court recognized that “[c]onventionally, one would believe that historic preservation proceedings and decisions would ‘relate to’ zoning inasmuch as they may serve to control projects in a manner akin to zoning requirements, or may employ special zoning conditions within historic districts.” Even so, the court concluded that Minn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a), did not apply to an application for a certificate of appropriateness because “decisions regarding historic preservation are not brought into or linked in logical or natural association with actual zoning decisions.”

The court of appeals affirmed. 500, LLC v. City of Minneapolis, No. A11–1705, 2012 WL 2368883, at *6 (Minn.App. June 25, 2012). The court reasoned that a “written request relating to zoning” is “ ‘a request to conduct a specific use of land within the framework of the regulatory structure relating to zoning or, in other words, a zoning application.’ ” Id. (quoting Advantage Capital Mgmt. v. City of Northfield, 664 N.W.2d 421, 427 (Minn.App.2003)). Because an application for a certificate of appropriateness was a request to “make alterations to the property,” not to conduct a specific use of the land, the court concluded that an “application for a certificate of appropriateness is not a request relating to zoning, and the district court did not err in determining that Minn.Stat. § 15.99 does not apply to the application.” Id. We granted 500 LLC's petition for further review.

II.

The question presented in this case is whether an application for a certificate of appropriateness is a “written request relating to zoning” under section 15.99, subdivision 2(a). Interpretation of a statute is a question of law that we review de novo. Larson v. State, 790 N.W.2d 700, 703 (Minn.2010). The first step in statutory interpretation is to “determine whether the statute's language, on its face, is ambiguous.” Id. (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). A statute is ambiguous only if it is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation. Am. Family Ins. Grp. v. Schroedl, 616 N.W.2d 273, 277 (Minn.2000). If a statute is ambiguous, then we may resort to the canons of statutory construction to determine its meaning. State v. Hayes, 826 N.W.2d 799, 804 (Minn.2013). If a statute is unambiguous, however, then we must apply the statute's plain meaning. Larson, 790 N.W.2d at 703.

A.

We begin our analysis with the text of Minn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a), which states in relevant part as follows:

[A]n agency must approve or deny within 60 days a written request relating to zoning, septic systems, watershed district review, soil and water conservation district review, or expansion of the metropolitan urban service area for a permit, license, or other governmental approval of an action. Failure of an agency to deny a request within 60 days is approval of the request.

(Emphasis added.) The parties agree that an application for a certificate of appropriateness is a “written request.” The City also concedes that, if an application for a certificate of appropriateness is a “written request relating to zoning,” its failure to deny 500 LLC's request within 60 days resulted in the automatic approval of 500 LLC's application.³ The parties disagree only about whether an application for a certificate of appropriateness “relat[es] to zoning” under Minn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a).

The statute does not define the phrase “relating to” or the term “zoning.” In the absence of statutory definitions, we give words and phrases their plain and ordinary meanings. See Abrahamson v. St. Louis Cnty. Sch. Dist., 819 N.W.2d 129, 133 (Minn.2012) (citing Minn.Stat. § 645.08(1) (2012)).

The phrase “relating to” means “ ‘to stand in some relation; to have bearing or concern; to pertain; refer; to bring into association with or connection with.’ ” Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U.S. 374, 383, 112 S.Ct. 2031, 119 L.Ed.2d 157 (1992) (quoting Black's Law Dictionary 1158 (5th ed.1979)); see also Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1916 (3d ed.2002) (defining “related” as “connected by reason of an established or discoverable relation”). We have defined “zoning” as the regulation of “building development and uses of property.” In re Denial of Eller Media Co.'s Applications for Outdoor Adver. Device Permits, 664 N.W.2d 1, 8 (Minn.2003); see also Webster's Third New International Dictionary 2660 (3d ed.2002) (defining “zoning” as “to partition (a city, borough, or township) by ordinance into zones or sections reserved for different purposes (as residence, business, or manufacturing or combinations of these) and governed by appropriate building regulations (as of the height and area of all structures)”).

Interpreting the foregoing terms together, the phrase “a written request relating to zoning” is unambiguous and refers to a written request that has a connection, association, or logical relationship to the regulation of building development or the uses of property. If a written request has such a connection, association, or logical relationship, then the 60–day time limit in Minn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a), applies. Calm Waters, LLC v. Kanabec Cnty. Bd. of Comm'rs, 756 N.W.2d 716, 723–24 (Minn.2008) (Dietzen, J., concurring).

The City would define the scope of Minn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a), more narrowly by defining the phrase “a written request relating to zoning” to refer to only those requests that are explicitly authorized by an applicable zoning ordinance or statute. We disagree for two reasons.

The first reason is that the City's interpretation of Minn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a), fails to give the phrase “relating to” its plain and ordinary meaning. That phrase, which the Supreme Court of the United States has described as “broad,” Morales, 504 U.S. at 383, 112 S.Ct. 2031, encompasses any connection, association, or logical relationship to the noun modified by the phrase—here, zoning. By effectively ignoring the phrase “relating to” in Minn.Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a), the City's interpretation conflicts with the canon...