Barton Contracting Co., Inc. v. City of Afton, No. 47580.

• Decision Date: 14 April 1978
• Docket Number: No. 47580.
• Citation: 268 NW 2d 712
• Parties: BARTON CONTRACTING CO., INC., Respondent, v. CITY OF AFTON, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

268 N.W.2d 712 (1978)

BARTON CONTRACTING CO., INC., Respondent, v. CITY OF AFTON, Appellant.

No. 47580.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 14, 1978.

Lawson, Ranum, Raleigh & Marshall and Raymond O. Marshall, Stillwater, Doherty, Rumble & Martin and David G. Martin, St. Paul, for appellant.

Petersen Lyons Tews & Squires and Gerald S. Duffy, St. Paul, for respondent.

Stanley G. Peskar, St. Paul, for League of Minn. Cities, amicus curiae, seeking reversal.

Popham, Haik, Schnobrich, Kaufman & Doty and Raymond A. Haik, Minneapolis, for The Aggregate & Readymix Assoc. of Minn., seeking affirmance.

Heard before PETERSON, YETKA, WAHL, and IVERSON, JJ., and considered and decided by the court en banc.

PETERSON, Justice.

The city of Afton appeals from the order granting a peremptory writ of mandamus and from the order denying the motion for amended findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order for judgment or, in the alternative, a new trial. The writ directs the city to issue a special-use permit to Barton Contracting Co., Inc. (hereafter Barton), authorizing Barton to expand its open pit gravel operations in northern Afton. We reverse and dissolve the writ.

The Barton property involved in this case consists of two adjoining 80-acre parcels of land located on a plateau on the northern edge of Afton. The northernmost parcel is referred to as the Hess parcel. Lying immediately south and somewhat to the east of the Hess parcel is the so-called Bishop parcel. Barton has mined gravel on the Hess parcel since 1961 and has been its record owner since 1963. To the north, northeast, and east of the Hess parcel there are various operational and planned graveling operations owned by others.

Barton became the record owner of the Bishop parcel in 1967, and up until 1977, when mining began pursuant to the district court's writ, the Bishop parcel was farm and grassland. The southern portion of the Bishop parcel remains in its natural state and slopes down to Lake Edith. To the west of the Bishop parcel (and south of the western portion of the Hess parcel) is the Metcalf Nature Center which is operated by the Science Museum of Minnesota. To the east of the Bishop parcel is private residential property. The Bishop parcel was first zoned "residential" by the Afton Town Board (as it was then known) in 1959. The city of Afton adopted a comprehensive-use plan in May 1975, and pursuant to that plan the Bishop parcel is now zoned "R-1" for residential use with 5-acre minimum lots. Under the Afton ordinance gravel mining is a permitted use where a special-use permit is obtained.¹

The focus of the dispute between Afton and Barton is the northern portion of the Bishop parcel. In early 1976 Barton applied to the city for a special-use permit to expand its operations from the Hess parcel² onto the northern portion of the Bishop parcel. Up until now it has been essentially a farmland buffer between (a) the graveling operations on the Hess parcel and elsewhere to the north, and (b) the recreational, residential, and nature areas to the south and southwest.

Between March and September 1976 numerous meetings were held between representatives of Barton and Afton. On September 14, 1976, the Afton Planning Commission held a public meeting on the Barton application. Representatives of Barton and numerous opponents to its application spoke, and the commission recommended to the city council that Barton's application be denied. One week later the city council held a public hearing on the Barton proposal. Again Barton representatives and opponents spoke and the city council voted to deny Barton the special-use permit.

Shortly after the city council's action Barton commenced this action seeking a writ of mandamus. In ordering the writ, the district court concluded that Afton had denied Barton procedural due process and that, because there was insufficient evidence to support its action, Afton's denial of the permit was arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.

1. We turn first to the issues of procedural due process. Prefatory to specific consideration of the three respects in which the district court concluded that Barton was denied procedural due process, we observe generally that the requirements of due process must be measured according to the nature of the government function involved and whether or not private interests are directly affected by the government action. In zoning proceedings the basic determination is whether the proceedings are legislative or judicial in nature. When a municipal governing body adopts or amends a zoning ordinance its action will usually affect an open class of individuals, interests, or situations, so that the governing body is then acting in a legislative capacity, Sun Oil Co. v. Village of New Hope, 300 Minn. 326, 220 N.W.2d 256 (1974). Any rights of procedural due process in such proceedings are minimal. When the governing body considers an application for a special-use permit pursuant to such ordinance, its action no longer bears on an open class of persons but directly on the particular interests of the applicant, in which case it acts in what is usually called a quasi-judicial capacity. Sun Oil Co. v. Village of New Hope, supra. The basic rights of procedural due process required in that case are reasonable notice of hearing and a reasonable opportunity to be heard. These quasi-judicial proceedings do not invoke the full panoply of procedures required in regular judicial proceedings, civil or criminal, many of which would be plainly inappropriate in these quasi-judicial settings.

The first respect in which the district court concluded that Barton was denied due process was that Barton was not allowed to cross-examine those who made adverse statements at the public hearing before the planning commission or the city council. We hold that cross-examination is not an essential of procedural due process in such hearings. Colagiovanni v. Zoning Bd. of Review of Providence, 90 R.I. 329, 158 A.2d 158 (1960); Zimarino v. Zoning Bd. of Review of Providence, 95 R.I. 383, 187 A.2d 259 (1963). The statements made at such a public hearing, unlike a regular judicial proceeding, are not given under oath and are not limited by the traditional rules of evidence. They are usually broad expressions of opinion in favor or against the application. Barton was accorded, and exercised, the opportunity to present information and argument to rebut opposing statements.³

The second respect in which the trial court concluded that Barton was denied procedural due process concerns advance copies of written materials presented at the city council hearing. The trial court concluded that Barton did not receive the written material in sufficient time prior to the hearing to prepare a response. The material consisted largely of letters expressing the opinions of private individuals who were opposed to Barton's project. This was not material which required lengthy analysis in preparation of a response. And, there is no indication in the transcript of either hearing that Barton requested a delay. Even if a request to delay the second hearing was in fact made, we are convinced that its denial did not deny Barton procedural due process. The city council had wide discretion in setting the date of the second hearing, and Barton has not particularized in any way how or why its interests were prejudiced by the city council's action. We hold, therefore, that there was no denial of due process.

The third respect in which the trial court concluded that Barton was denied procedural due process is based upon an unsupported finding that three of the city council members relied on information outside the record. The information in question concerned the general nature of geological formations underlying the plateau on which the Barton property was located. Information on these formations and their bearing on possible environmental damage had been presented to the city council 2 years earlier in connection with a proposal for a sanitary landfill on the Hess parcel. But the information clearly was made a part of the record in the present case. A number of those testifying at the hearing, particularly Dr. Dale Chelberg, testified concerning this same underlying geology and risk of environmental damage, so that this information was a part of the record on which the city council could base its decision.

In sum we find that Barton was not denied procedural due process in any of the three respects found by the district court. Our review of the record convinces us that Barton was accorded the basic procedural due process rights which were appropriate given the quasi-judicial character of the proceedings.

2. We turn now to the merits of Afton's denial of Barton's application for a special-use permit for the Bishop parcel. The basic principle, as stated in our leading case, Zylka v. City of Crystal, 283 Minn. 192, 196, 167 N.W.2d 45, 49 (1969), is that the application may not be denied "arbitrarily" but that "the administering body, be it the council itself or a planning commission to which power to act is delegated, has broad discretionary power to deny an application for a special use permit * * *." Subsequent cases such as Inland Construction Co. v. City of Bloomington, 292 Minn. 374, 195 N.W.2d 558 (1972), and Metro 500, Inc. v. City of Brooklyn Park, 297 Minn. 294, 211 N.W.2d 358 (1973), in determining the boundary between permissibly broad discretionary action and an impermissibly arbitrary denial, have looked to whether the zoning authority stated reasons for its decision. In Corwine v. Crow Wing County, 309 Minn. 345, 352, 244 N.W.2d 482, 486 (1976), we explained how a statement of reasons affected the scope of judicial review to determine whether the denial was arbitrary:

"* * * Since the court is reviewing the decision of another body, it should, of course, confine itself at all times to the facts and circumstances developed before that

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