Cioffoletti v. Planning and Zoning Com'n of Town of Ridgefield

• Decision Date: 10 January 1989
• Docket Number: No. 13403,13403
• Citation: 209 Conn. 544,552 A.2d 796
• Parties: Robert CIOFFOLETTI et al. v. PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION OF the TOWN OF RIDGEFIELD.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

Page 796

552 A.2d 796

209 Conn. 544

Robert CIOFFOLETTI et al. v. PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION OF the TOWN OF RIDGEFIELD.

No. 13403.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Oct. 13, 1988.

Decided Jan. 10, 1989.

Melvin J. Silverman, Norwalk, for appellants-appellees (plaintiffs).

Thomas W. Beecher, Danbury, for appellee-appellant (defendant).

Before PETERS, C.J., and ARTHUR H. HEALEY, SHEA, GLASS and COVELLO, JJ.

SHEA, Associate Justice.

The plaintiffs, Robert and Catherine Cioffoletti, owners of a parcel of land in Ridgefield used for the mining and excavation of sand and gravel, appealed to the Superior Court after the defendant, the Ridgefield planning and zoning commission, acting as the town's inland wetlands board, granted with certain modifications and conditions the plaintiffs' application to expand their mining operation. The trial court dismissed the appeal, finding no infirmities in either the town's regulations or the procedures that were followed. This appeal followed.

On appeal, the plaintiffs claim that the trial court erred in holding: (1) that evidence offered in support of their claim of an unconstitutional taking, as to the economic effect of the defendant's action upon the plaintiffs was inadmissible; (2) that the plaintiffs received a fair hearing; (3) that the defendant may regulate activity in nonwetlands areas that affects wetlands areas; (4) that the defendant has the authority to require a performance bond; and (5) that the defendant's action has not violated constitutionally protected property rights of the plaintiffs because (a) the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Act, General Statutes §§ 22a-36 through 22a-45, as applied by the commission, does not constitute a taking for a public purpose without just compensation; (b) the defendant's modifications of the application as granted substantially advance a legitimate state interest; and (c) theregulations adopted by the defendant pursuant to the inland wetlands statute contain adequate standards and, therefore, comport with due process.

In its cross appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court erred in allowing the plaintiffs to amend their appeal to include additional issues. We dismiss the cross appeal because the defendant has not been aggrieved by the judgment dismissing the plaintiffs' appeal. ¹

We conclude that the trial court should have allowed the plaintiffs to introduce evidence of the economic impact of the defendant's ruling. With respect to the other nonconstitutional claims of the plaintiffs, we find no error. We decline consideration of the merits of the plaintiffs' constitutional claims at this juncture, however, because, without the excluded evidence, such consideration would be premature and is not essential to the disposition of the appeal. See Moore v. McNamara, 201 Conn. 16, 21, 513 A.2d 660 (1986). Accordingly, we remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings.

The following facts are ascertainable from the record or are undisputed. The plaintiffs are the owners of a twenty-three acre parcel of land located in Ridgefield. The premises are currently used, and have been used for many years, for the mining and excavation of sand and gravel. In November, 1984, pursuant to the Ridgefield inland wetlands and watercourse regulations, the plaintiffs applied to the defendant in its capacity as the town's inland wetlands board, for permission to expand the mining operation within and adjacent to existing wetlands. The proposed expansion was divided into five areas, each representing proposed increments for each two of the next ten years.

The defendant referred the plaintiffs' application to the Fairfield county soil and water conservation district, the United States department of agriculture soil conservation service, and the Connecticut department of environmental protection, all of which approved the application.

On December 18, 1984, January 8, 1985, and March 12, 1985, the defendant held public hearings on the application. At the hearings, various members of the public, including the plaintiffs' neighbors, spoke out in opposition to the application. They complained of traffic and noise problems at the mining site, and they offered expert testimony and reports that reached conclusions nearly the opposite of those reached by the governmental agencies. The opponents' expert stated, for example, that the proposed excavation would have an adverse impact on the existing flood plain portions of the wetlands. This expert further maintained that the governmental agencies had not addressed the possibility of diminished water quality that might result if oil and gasoline used to operate the mining equipment were spilled and thereafter entered the ground water system. After the March 12, 1985 hearing was terminated, the defendant approved the plaintiffs' application but voted to reduce substantially the area upon which they sought to excavate.

On April 16, 1985, the defendant issued the plaintiffs a special permit with several conditions, including a requirement that they post a $100,000 performance bond. The plaintiffs filed an administrative appeal in the Superior Court. That court rendered judgment dismissing the appeal.

I

At the trial court hearing, the plaintiffs attempted to introduce evidence as to the economic effect on their property of the defendant's failure to grant their excavation permit in accordance with their application. The plaintiffs offered this evidence to enable the trial court to make a determination, pursuant to General Statutes § 22a-43a, ² as to whether the action of the defendant constituted a taking without just compensation. The trial court excluded this evidence, holding it to be inadmissible in a hearing governed by General Statutes § 4-183(e). The plaintiffs took an exception to this ruling. The defendant maintains that the plaintiffs were precluded by our holding in Florentine v. Darien, 142 Conn. 415, 115 A.2d 328 (1955), from challenging the constitutionality of the defendant's action in an administrative appeal. We agree with the plaintiffs that the trial court should have admitted the evidence offered.

The plaintiffs in Florentine raised in their appeal to this court the question of whether by seeking a variance from the Darien board of appeals they would thereafter be foreclosed from challenging the constitutionality of the action of the zoning commission. We indicated our adherence to earlier decisions holding that "a party cannot seek the relief provided in an ordinance or statute and later in the same proceeding raise the question of its constitutionality." Id., 428, 115 A.2d 328. We declared instead that a party should proceed with the administrative remedies available to him, and thereafter, "challenge by direct attack in an independent proceeding the constitutionality of the regulation, or indeed, of the entire ordinance or law." Id., 430, 115 A.2d 328. If the view expressed in Florentine were controlling in the case at hand, therefore, the trial court would have correctly concluded that the plaintiffs were barred from challenging the constitutionality of the defendant's action in their administrative appeal. We conclude, however, that our holding in Florentine is not applicable to an appeal from an inland wetlands agency because the legislature has provided otherwise.

General Statutes § 22a-43a(a) provides in part that "[i]f upon appeal pursuant to section 22a-43, the court finds that the action appealed from constitutes the equivalent of a taking without compensation, it shall set aside the action or it may modify the action so that it does not constitute a taking." For such an appeal this statute modifies the procedure prescribed in Florentine for mounting a constitutional challenge. It allows a party aggrieved by the action of an inland wetlands commission to raise a takings claim in an administrative appeal rather than in an independent proceeding. Accordingly, if an aggrieved party claims that the action appealed from constitutes a taking, and offers relevant evidence to support that claim, the trial court must hear the evidence to enable it to make an informed decision. In the case at hand the trial court refused to hear the plaintiffs' evidence on the economic impact of the defendant's action and thus disabled itself from making the informed decision contemplated by § 22a-43a(a).

The defendant suggests that because General Statutes § 22a-43 states that the appeal from an inland wetlands commission "shall be in accordance with the provisions of section 4-183," the trial court properly excluded the plaintiffs' economic effect evidence. General Statutes § 4-183(e) provides that if the court needs additional evidence to make its decision, "the court may order that the additional evidence be taken before the agency upon conditions determined by the court." The defendant maintains that this limitation on the presentation of evidence to the trial court serves to confine the court to the evidence in the record and to prevent the court from substituting its judgment for that of the agency.

We construe the provision of § 22a-43a(a) that "[i]f ... the court finds that the action appealed from constitutes the equivalent of a taking without compensation," as contemplating that the trial court should decide the taking issue de novo in the light of all the evidence properly presented to it, including, but not limited to, the administrative record. (Emphasis added.) Since this court has indicated that an administrative agency is incompetent to decide certain constitutional issues; Caldor, Inc. v. Thornton, 191 Conn. 336, 344-45 n. 6, 464 A.2d 785 (1983), aff'd, 472 U.S. 703, 105 S.Ct. 2914, 86 L.Ed.2d 557 (1985); it would make little sense for a trial court pursuant to § 4-183(e) to remand a case to an inland wetlands commission for the purpose of hearing evidence relevant only to the issue of an unconstitutional taking, which that agency may not...