Dawson Enterprises, Inc. v. Blaine County

• Decision Date: 12 August 1977
• Docket Number: No. 12061,12061
• Citation: 567 P.2d 1257,98 Idaho 506
• Parties: DAWSON ENTERPRISES, INC., an Illinois Corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BLAINE COUNTY, a subdivision of the State of Idaho, and Ray Sweat, C. W. Gardner, and Jack R. Bennett, Board of County Commissioners, Defendants- Respondents.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

Page 1257

567 P.2d 1257

98 Idaho 506

DAWSON ENTERPRISES, INC., an Illinois Corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BLAINE COUNTY, a subdivision of the State of Idaho, and Ray Sweat, C. W. Gardner, and Jack R. Bennett, Board of County Commissioners, Defendants- Respondents.

No. 12061.

Supreme Court of Idaho.

Aug. 12, 1977.

Gerald W. Olson of Johnson & Olson, Pocatello, for plaintiff-appellant.

Thomas B. Campion, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Ketchum, for defendants-respondents.

BISTLINE, Justice.

Dawson Enterprises, Inc., an Illinois corporation authorized to do business in Idaho, hereinafter referred to as Dawson, is the stockholder of Dawson Ramsey Motor Sales, the General Motors franchise holder located on Main Street in Ketchum. Deeming the existing location outmoded, Dawson acquired an option to purchase the subject property, a 12.8 acre site located about 2 1/2 miles north of the city limits of Hailey and eight miles south of Ketchum. The property is wedge-shaped, with the apex of the triangle being formed by U.S. Highway 93 on the west as it intersects the Union Pacific railroad right-of-way on the east.

Because the land was zoned R-2 (one acre residential/agricultural), Dawson applied to the Blaine County Planning and Zoning Commission for a reclassification. A hearing was held on October 2, 1973, but, with Dawson's approval, the application was tabled until February 1, 1974, pending the outcome of a special study of the entire corridor north of Hailey. With matters in this posture, Dawson exercised his option and bought the 12.8 acres at a total cost of $128,000 from Gary Hibbard who, in 1961, had paid $87 per acre for the property.

At a meeting of the Planning and Zoning Commission on April 9, 1974, Dawson's rezoning application was denied. Appeals were taken to the Blaine County Board of Zoning Appeals (denial sustained, May 22, 1974) and to the Blaine County Board of County Commissioners (denial sustained, June 24, 1974). Dawson then brought suit in District Court. A trial was held on May 6 and 7, 1975. The denial was again sustained in a judgment entered by the district court on August 2, 1975. Appeal is taken from that judgment.

I.

Dawson's first assignment of error concerns the trial court's failure to rule the Blaine County zoning ordinance in question as void. This, in turn, rests on the court's failure to find that a separately enacted comprehensive plan was "a statutory condition precedent necessary to support land use regulations adopted by the government entity" and that "without such a comprehensive plan the zoning must fall." Appellant argues that at no time relevant for this case "had Blaine County implemented such a comprehensive plan but only private objectives of those members of the Planning and Zoning Commission and the Planning Administrator."

We are thus presented with our first opportunity to construe the familiar statutory language requiring that all zoning "regulations shall be made in accordance with a comprehensive plan." I.C. § 50-1203. ¹

The language, as the compiler's note makes clear, parallels that found in the statutes of many other jurisdictions which have adopted the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act published by the United States Department of Commerce in 1925.

In construing such language the courts have been unanimous in stressing the importance of careful, open and comprehensive planning as a precondition for zoning. Zoning regulations are not ends in themselves; they are but the means to the end of sound planning for the public good.

"Underlying the entire concept of zoning is the assumption that zoning can be a vital tool for maintaining a civilized form of existence only if we employ the insights and the learning of the philosopher, the city planner, the economist, the sociologist, the public health expert and all the other professions concerned with urban problems.

"This fundamental conception of zoning has been present from its inception. The almost universal statutory requirement that zoning conform to a 'well-considered plan' or 'comprehensive plan' is a reflection of that view. (Citations omitted.) The thought behind the requirement is that consideration must be given to the need of the community as a whole. In exercising their zoning powers, the local authorities must act for the benefit of the community as a whole following a calm and deliberate consideration of the alternatives, and not because of the whims of either an articulate minority or even majority of the community (citation omitted). Thus the mandate (of the relevant statute) is not a mere technicality which serves only as an obstacle course for public officials to overcome in carrying out their duties. Rather, the comprehensive plan is the essence of zoning. Without it, there can be no rational allocation of land use." Udell v. Haas, 21 N.Y.2d 463, 288 N.Y.S.2d 888, 893-94, 235 N.E.2d 897, 900-901 (1968).

The opinion in that case went on to note the danger that without a comprehensive plan, "zoning, considered as a self-contained activity rather than as a mean to a broader end, may tyrannize individual property owners." Moreover, the absence of such a plan would make it impossible for a reviewing court to evaluate the regulation as actually being directed to the health, safety, welfare and morals of the community.

The question, then, is not the desirability and necessity for comprehensive planning. The question is: What document may be found to embody the plan? Professor Anderson remarks that the notes accompanying the 1926 version of the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act clearly indicate that

" . . . the draftsmen intended to require some planning as an integral part of the zoning process. It is equally clear that no provision for the preparation or adoption of a written plan beyond the text of the zoning ordinance was spelled out in the act or referred to in the notes. It remained for the courts to give dimension to the requirement that zoning regulations be made in accordance with a comprehensive plan." 1 Anderson, American Law of Zoning § 5.03, p. 265 (2nd Ed. 1976).

In turning for guidance to the courts, Rathkopf, in his 1959 edition of The Law of Zoning and Planning, Chapter 9, § 1, maintains that "the best analysis of a comprehensive plan" ever provided as a gloss on the Enabling Act's language was that found in a then recent decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court. There, after noting that the evil to be avoided is "capricious exercise of the legislative power resulting in haphazard or piecemeal zoning," the court went on to remark:

"Without venturing an exact definition, it may be said for present purposes that 'plan' connotes an integrated product of a rational process and 'comprehensive' requires something beyond a piecemeal approach, both to be revealed by the ordinance considered in relation to the physical facts and the purposes authorized (by the New Jersey statute). Such being the requirements of a comprehensive plan, no reason is perceived why we should infer the Legislature intended by necessary implication that the comprehensive plan be portrayed in some physical form outside the ordinance itself. A plan may readily be revealed in an end-product here the zoning ordinance and no more is required by the statute." Kozesnik v. Montgomery Township, 24 N.J. 154, 131 A.2d 1, 7-8 (1957).

Dawson cites us to no case in which the applicable statutory language has ever been held to require the enactment of a separate comprehensive plan as a condition precedent to the validity of a zoning ordinance. Rather the general rule has become firmly established that, absent specific requirements in the enabling legislation, "the comprehensive plan need not have a separate physical existence apart from the zoning ordinances, and it need not be in writing, but its design may be found in the scheme apparent in the zoning regulations themselves." 8 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations, § 25.78, p. 201 (3d ed. 1976). And see, 1 Anderson, American Law of Zoning, § 503, p. 268 (2d ed. 1976); 1 Yokley, Zoning Law and Practice, § 3.3 (1976 Cum.Supp.); Haar, "In Accordance with a Comprehensive Plan," 68 Harvard L.Rev. 1154 (1955); Weigel v. Planning and Zoning Com'n of Town of Westport, 160 Conn. 239, 278 A.2d 766 (1971); Nottingham Village, Inc. v. Baltimore County, 266 Md. 339, 292 A.2d 680 (1972); Lanphear v. Township of Antwerp, Cty. of Van Buren, 50 Mich.App. 641, 214 N.W.2d 66 (1973); Tulsa Rock Co. v. Board of Cty. Com'rs of Rogers Cty., 531 P.2d 351 (Okl.Ct.App.1975); Cleaver v. Board of Adjustment, 200 A.2d 408 (1964); Shelton v. City of Bellevue, 73 Wash.2d 28, 414 Pa. 367, 435 P.2d 949 (1968).

In the present case, Judge Kramer found that the Blaine County zoning ordinances

". . . themselves defining the classifications of lands extensively define what will be permitted within each zone that is adopted. What we have then, it appears to the Court, is in essence an adoption of a general comprehensive plan, when the zones as recommended by the Planning & Zoning Commission are, in effect, adopted by the Board of County Commissioners. . . .

"Certainly by the adoption of the zoning ordinances and the use of defendants' exhibit 4 (Blaine County Planning and Zoning Objectives), a comprehensive plan was adopted sufficiently to comply with Idaho Code 31-3804 and Idaho Code 50-1104." ² The trial court's conclusion that the adoption of a separate comprehensive plan was not a "condition precedent" to the validity of the zoning ordinances was correct.

One word of caution. The opposite result would be compelled in the presence of an enabling statute which expressly makes the adoption of a comprehensive plan a condition precedent to the validity of a zoning ordinance. Such a procedure is mandated by the 1975 Local Planning Act, I.C. §§ 67-6507 through -6511. ³ And see, Baker v. City of Milwaukie, 170 Or.App. 89, 520 P.2d 479 (1974), aff'd, 271 Or. 500, 533 P.2d 772 (1975).

II.

Dawson next...