Corwine v. Crow Wing County

Decision Date16 July 1976
Docket NumberNo. 46151,46151
Citation244 N.W.2d 482,309 Minn. 345
PartiesRobert G. CORWINE, Respondent, v. CROW WING COUNTY, Defendant, Robert Nader, et al., intervenors, Appellants.
CourtMinnesota Supreme Court

Syllabus by the Court

1. When a decision-making body denies or revokes issuance of a special- or conditional-use permit, the reviewing court should confine itself at all times to the facts and circumstances developed before that body. If the decision-making body does not state reasons contemporaneously with its action, its decision will be prima facie arbitrary, and it will bear the burden of persuading the reviewing court that the facts and circumstances before it gave rise to legally sufficient reasons for denial or revocation. If the decision-making body does state reasons, further review will be limited to the legal sufficiency and factual basis for those reasons. When reasons are given, the petitioner must bear the burden of persuading the reviewing court that those reasons are legally insufficient.

2. The record in this case presents genuine issues of material fact which should be resolved at trial on the merits, not by summary judgment.

Borden, Steinbauer, Borden & Rathke, Charles P. Steinbauer and Stephen C. Rathke, Brainerd, for defendant-appellant.

Will Hartfeldt, St. Paul, for intervenors-appellants.

Larson, Mannikko & Swenson, Robert P. Larson, and Joseph L. Mannikko, Wayzata, for respondent.

Heard before KELLY, MacLAUGHLIN, and SCOTT, JJ., and considered and decided by the court en banc.

KELLY, Justice.

The county and intervenors separately appeal from summary judgment ordering the issuance of a special-permitted-use permit and a planned-unit-development permit to plaintiff for a campground. 1 We reverse and remand.

Plaintiff is the owner of a 106-acre farm, adjacent to Nokay Lake, in Nokay Lake Township, Crow Wing County. The record discloses that plaintiff had expended some time and money in the development of his property as a campground before the adoption of the Crow Wing County Interim Zoning Ordinance in 1970. Plaintiff's applications for conditional-use permits and planned-unit-development permits to allow him to operate his campground under the interim zoning ordinance were twice denied by the Crow Wing County Planning Commission, once in 1970 and once in 1971.

On January 4, 1972, Crow Wing County adopted the permanent zoning ordinance involved in this case. On June 8 of that year plaintiff again applied to the planning commission for special-permitted-use and planned-unit-development permits for his campground. The planning commission held several public hearings on plaintiff's application, approving it on October 4, 1972, subject to certain conditions, including conditions relating to the total number of campsites, noise regulation, screening between the lake and campground, and sanitary system. Certain parties, property owners of lakefront cottages on Nokay Lake and certain others, intervened in the proceedings in the planning commission and appealed the commission's decision to the county board of adjustment in accordance with procedures set forth in the county zoning ordinance. On January 4, 1973, the board of adjustment upheld the decision to issue the permits, subject to additional conditions relating to expansion of a buffer zone and to an access road. The intervening property owners appealed to the county board, which revoked the permits on June 5, 1973.

Plaintiff petitioned the district court for a writ of mandamus and injunction ordering the issuance of the required permits for his campground. Zoning Ordinance, § 14.2. He moved for summary judgment in that action, including as a part of his motion his affidavit and depositions of a few of the county commissioners and property owners. The county responded with an affidavit in support of a motion by certain property owners to intervene.

The district court found that there were no issues of material fact and that plaintiff was entitled to the permits as a matter of law. The district court then ordered issuance of the permits, deleting some of the conditions previously imposed and modifying others. The county and property owners moved to vacate summary judgment, attaching an additional affidavit. The court denied this motion. Further facts revealed by the affidavits and depositions will be stated later in this opinion.

Two issues are presented on appeal: (1) Did the court err in holding the county board's revocation of the permits arbitrary as a matter of law for failure to attach findings of fact or reasons for the revocation? (2) Were the

reasons for revocation given by the county board legally

insufficient? County Board's Alleged Failure to

Attach Findings or Reasons for Revocation

In granting summary judgment reversing the county board's decision to revoke the permits, the district court relied heavily on previous decisions of this court in concluding that the board's revocation of the permits was 'arbitrary as a matter of law, due to the failure of the County to state any reasons and facts showing a need to revoke.' The district court relied chiefly on this court's decision in Zylka v. City of Crystal, 283 Minn. 192, 167 N.W.2d 45 (1969). In Zylka this court upheld the lower court's conclusion that the city had been arbitrary and unreasonable in denying a landowner a special-use permit to construct a filling station in a commercially zoned area. Neither the city council nor the planning commission which had reviewed the landowner's application had given any reason for denial. Moreover, the city had made no showing at trial that a filling station was incompatible with the area or that operation of a filling station there would in any substantial way interfere with the public health, safety, or general welfare of the community. In articulating the basis for its decision in Zylka, this court made two important statements regarding special-use permits. First, it established a rule whereby arbitrariness could be found by a reviewing court when a municipal ordinance contained no specific standards for granting or denying special-use permits:

'* * * In theory, if not in practice, provisions authorizing the issuance of special-use permits are intended to provide more flexibility in land-use control than provisions authorizing a variance. While 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, it cannot do so arbitrarily. A denial would be arbitrary, for example, if it was established that all of the standards specified by the ordinance as a condition to granting the permit have been met. Where the ordinance does not specify standards, as is usually the case when final authority to determine whether a permit shall be granted is retained by the council, an arbitrary denial may be found by a reviewing court when the evidence presented at the hearing before the municipal governing Body and the reviewing court establishes that the requested use is compatible with the basic use authorized within the particular zone and does not endanger the public health or safety or the general welfare of the area affected or the community as a whole.' 283 Minn. 196, 167 N.W.2d 49. (Italics supplied.)

Second, the court held that a prima facie case of arbitrariness was made out when a decision-making body failed to record legally sufficient reasons for its decision:

'It is undisputed that in passing upon plaintiff's application neither body preserved any record of the hearing before it, made any findings of fact, or recorded any reason or reasons for its action. When plaintiff established this in his case in chief, the trial court had no choice but to conclude that a prima facie case of arbitrariness had been established. Surely, where nothing more appears than that the council denied the application after a hearing before and upon recommendation of its planning commission, there is no sufficient evidentiary basis for a court to infer that the council's action was reached upon a consideration of the facts and was based upon reason rather than the mere individual whim of the council members. While plaintiff, indeed, has the burden to show arbitrariness, the failure of the council to record any legally sufficient basis for its determination at the time it acted made a prima facie showing of arbitrariness inevitable.' 283 Minn. 198, 167 N.W.2d 50.

After making this statement, however, the court proceeded to consider evidence presented by the city which allegedly rebutted the prima facie showing. The court found this rebuttal insufficient.

The second statement in Zylka has been reaffirmed and expanded in subsequent cases. 2 In Inland Construction Co. v. City of Bloomington, 292 Minn. 374, 195 N.W.2d 558 (1972), this court held that a trial court erred in sustaining the city council's denial of a conditional-use permit for a shopping center where the court had based its findings on reasons not articulated by the city council. In Metro 500, Inc. v. City of Brooklyn Park, 297 Minn. 294, 211 N.W.2d 358 (1973), this court refused to rely on reasons for denial which apparently had some basis in the record, but were not formally articulated by the city council as reasons for denial. We stated:

'We cannot find any evidence that would support a finding by the trial court that the council, contemporaneously with the denial of the special permit, found or gave as reasons for that denial that the proposed filling station would seriously depreciate surrounding property values or would cause serious traffic congestion. It follows that any finding by the trial court to the contrary would be clearly erroneous.' 297 Minn. 303, 211 N.W.2d 364.

In Board of Benton Township v. Carver County Board, Minn., 225 N.W.2d 815, 818 (1975), however, we indicated in the following statement that the prima facie showing of...

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