Clark County Bd. of Com'rs v. Taggart Const. Co., Inc., No. 11418

• Docket Nº: No. 11418
• Citation: 615 P.2d 965, 96 Nev. 732
• Case Date: September 05, 1980
• Court: Supreme Court of Nevada

Page 965

615 P.2d 965 96 Nev. 732 CLARK COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, Thalia Dondero, David
Canter, Sam Bowler, Robert Broadbent, Manuel
Cortez, and Jack Petitti, Appellants,
v.
TAGGART CONSTRUCTION CO., INC., d/b/a W.M.K. Transit Mix,
and Gulf Oil Corporation, Respondents. No. 11418. Supreme Court of Nevada. Sept. 5, 1980.

Page 966

Robert J. Miller, Dist. Atty. of Clark County, and Victor W. Priebe, Deputy Dist. Atty., Las Vegas, for appellants.

Morse-Foley, Las Vegas, for respondents.

[96 Nev. 733] OPINION

MANOUKIAN, Justice:

This is an appeal from a declaratory judgment entered by the district court, reversing a determination of the Clark County Planning Department denying respondents' application for permission to make certain capital improvements and expand business activities under an existing variance on respondent W.M.K.' § real property. The sole issue before us is whether the trial court erred in concluding that the zoning variance included the uses asserted by respondents.

Page 967

We hold that the trial court did err.

Respondent, W.M.K., owns approximately 160 acres of real property on the alluvial ledge of the Charleston Range just west of Las Vegas in Clark County. The property has been zoned RE (residential) since 1947 and continued to be so zoned at all times relevant hereto. In 1965, W.M.K. applied for a zoning reclassification from RE to M2 (industrial) for the mining and crushing of gravel, the construction and maintenance of a rock crusher, together with a readymix concrete plant. The request [96 Nev. 734] for a zoning change was denied; however, the Board of County Commissioners approved W.M.K.'s request as a variance for a term of five years. When the variance expired, W.M.K. sought and received a permanent variance consistent with the scope of the variance granted in 1965. The trial court found this to be a continuation of the original 1965 variance without a time limitation.

In the early 1970's, respondent Industrial Asphalt, a division of Gulf Oil Corporation, entered into a lease agreement with W.M.K. Under the terms of the agreement, Industrial Asphalt would construct a mixing plant for asphalt paving provided W.M.K. could obtain a variance or conditional use permit, believed by both parties to be necessary. Between March 1973 and May 1975, W.M.K. filed five applications for permission to build an asphalt mixing plant, all of which were denied by the appellant Board of County Commissioners. It was only when these requests were denied that W.M.K. sought a building permit under an expanded interpretation of the original variance. Nevertheless, the Clark County Planning Department, an arm of the County Commission, denied respondents building permit for an asphalt mixing plant because the property was still zoned RE (residential). Similarly, in December of 1976, the Planning Department denied W.M.K.'s request for a building permit for an equipment maintenance shop because of the property's RE zoning status.

In granting the declaratory judgment in favor of W.M.K., the trial court ruled that their variance "included permissible and reasonable and necessary additions or enlargements to the original use that the property was put to under the variance." The variance was found to include an asphalt plant and a maintenance shop. The trial court accordingly concluded that W.M.K. was entitled to the building permits.

The district court conducted the equivalent of a trial de novo. It made an independent determination that the breadth of the variance included an asphalt mixing plant and a maintenance building. The court erred in doing so. Its province was confined to a review of the record of evidence presented to the Clark County Board of Commissioners and the Planning Department, with its primary focus on the variance itself. Lapinski v. City of Reno, 95 Nev. 898, 901, 603 P.2d 1088, 1090 (1979); Bartlett v. Board of Trustees, 92 Nev. 347, 350, 550 P.2d 416, 417 (1976); Urban Renewal Agcy. v. Iacometti, 79 Nev. 113, 117-20, 379 P.2d 466, 468-69 (1963). We must [96 Nev. 735] review the variance and related proceedings before the commission, and in doing so, determine whether the district court abused its discretion by substituting its judgment for that of the zoning tribunals. Urban Renewal Agcy. v. Iacometti, 79 Nev. at 118-20, 379 P.2d at 468-69. We have reviewed both the commission and district court proceedings and we find and so hold that neither the commission nor the planning department abused their discretion.

A variance is designed to authorize a specific use of property in a manner otherwise proscribed. Because a variance affords relief from the literal enforcement of a zoning ordinance, it will be strictly construed to limit relief to the minimum variance which is sufficient to relieve the hardship. Hazel v. Metropolitan Development Comm'n, 289 N.E.2d 308, 313 (Ind.1972); Board of Adjustment v. Ruble, 193 N.W.2d 497, 503 (Iowa 1972); 3 R. Anderson, American Law of Zoning § 18.84, at 352 (2d ed. 1977)...