Galt v. Stanton, 3520

• Decision Date: 02 March 1979
• Docket Number: No. 3520,3520
• Citation: 591 P.2d 960
• Parties: Donald A. GALT and Woodside Construction, Appellants, v. Maurice F. STANTON, Appellee.
• Court: Alaska Supreme Court

Page 960

591 P.2d 960

Donald A. GALT and Woodside Construction, Appellants, v. Maurice F. STANTON, Appellee.

No. 3520.

Supreme Court of Alaska.

March 2, 1979.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing

April 6, 1979.

George M. Kapolchok, of Atkinson, Conway, Young, Bell & Gagnon, Anchorage, for appellants.

Jerry Wertzbaugher, Asst. Municipal Atty., Richard Garnett, III, Municipal Atty., Anchorage, for appellant Municipality of Anchorage.

Kelly C. Fisher, of Dickson, Evans, Esch & Papas, Anchorage, for appellee.

OPINION

Before BOOCHEVER, C. J., and RABINOWITZ, CONNOR, and BURKE, JJ., and DIMOND, Senior Justice.

BOOCHEVER, Chief Justice.

This is an appeal from a decision of the superior court remanding for further consideration a decision of the Anchorage City Council sitting as a zoning board of adjustment. ¹ The superior court found that there was not substantial evidence to support the City Council's decision. We conclude that there was substantial evidence to support the Council's decision and that the superior court's determination should be reversed.

Appellants Donald Galt and Woodside Construction, hereinafter collectively referred to as Galt, are the owners and developers of the Woodside East residential planned unit development in Anchorage. ² As approved, Woodside East consists of 161 housing units, of which some 109 had been built at the time the present dispute arose. Appellee Maurice Stanton owns a planned unit development (P.U.D.) adjacent to Woodside East and fronting on the intersection of Lake Otis Parkway and Northern Lights Boulevard. As approved, Stanton's P.U.D. consists of three medical office buildings. Presently, access to this P.U.D. is available only from Northern Lights Boulevard and, because of a traffic median on that street, is even further limited to traffic traveling west. ³ Drivers leaving the medical office complex must turn right onto Northern Lights and head west. If they desire to travel east, or to get onto Lake Otis Parkway, they must continue west until they are able to make a legal U-turn in order to head back in the direction from which they came. ⁴

In February 1975, Galt petitioned the Planning and Zoning Commission for an extension of time to complete the Woodside East development. The Commission held a public hearing on the petition on March 26, 1975, and at that time, appellee Stanton requested that Galt be required to provide access ⁵ for the medical office complex through Woodside East to Lake Otis Parkway as a condition of the time extension. ⁶ Galt opposed the requested condition, arguing that it would open up the residential area to heavy traffic flow from the medical complex. The Planning Commission approved the time extension, but did not resolve the access issue as Stanton had requested. Stanton appealed to the Anchorage City Council, acting in its capacity as the board of adjustment.

On May 13, 1975, the City Council held hearings on the appeal. ⁷ Unable to resolve the access issue, it tabled the matter and requested that the planning staff of the municipal public works department develop alternative solutions. Five proposals were submitted, and a second hearing was held before the City Council on May 27. At that time, and after extensive discussion and further testimony, the City Council approved Galt's time extension request, subject to the condition that Galt make available "a fifteen foot strip of land to provide a one-way exit to Lake Otis on the north property line of the medical center." The only objection voiced to the fifteen-foot wide exit road was by the fire chief who wanted access to the area for firefighting equipment. That objection was met by allowing two-way access for emergency vehicles and by making the road twenty-five feet wide fifteen feet from Galt's property and ten feet from Stanton's. Stanton was not present at this meeting, but Mr. Holmes, his attorney, was, and he did not object to this solution. When asked whether he had a comment, Holmes said:

I don't think so. I can't speak for Maurice (Stanton) as to whether he wants to accept this. It is a matter of dollars and cents and it is a lot better than what he has got right now. I figure that it is within your prerogative to present him with an alternative and if he wants to buy it fine, but if he doesn't want to buy it at least it releases Don (Galt) and allows him to continue with his subdivision which I think . . .

Under the alternative approved by the City Council, traffic would be able to leave the medical complex, turn right and travel a short distance through Woodside East to Lake Otis Parkway. To keep traffic flow through Woodside East to a minimum, cars would not be able to enter from Lake Otis into Woodside East, and traffic leaving the medical complex would be prohibited from turning left into the residential area.

Stanton appealed to the superior court, requesting that the Council's decision be overturned and that he be given two-way access to Lake Otis. In the alternative, Stanton requested a remand to the City Council for a new hearing. On May 26, 1977, the superior court issued a memorandum decision remanding the case to the City Council for further hearings. The superior court held that the record did not contain enough evidence to determine whether the City Council's decision was reasonable. This appeal by Galt from the superior court decision followed.

The proper standard to be applied by a court reviewing factual determinations of boards of adjustment was laid out in Keiner v. City of Anchorage, 378 P.2d 406 (Alaska 1963). ⁸ In Keiner, the superior court was asked to review a decision by the Anchorage City Council acting as a board of adjustment condemning the appellant's building as a fire hazard. The superior court affirmed, and the appellant appealed to this court, claiming that the evidence before the board of adjustment did not support its decision. We held:

In dealing with this issue we apply the rule that the board's findings should not be reversed if in the light of the whole record they are supported by substantial evidence, i. e., such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.

378 P.2d at 411. ⁹

In this case, we are dealing, in part, with a question of whether there was substantial evidence upon which the Council could properly base a decision. The Council, however, was also exercising discretion in choosing between alternative plans. Where such discretion has been delegated to an administrative agency, ¹⁰ our task is to determine whether there is a rational basis for the exercise of that discretion. ¹¹

Language in the memorandum decision indicates that the superior court was guided by the correct standard of review. The court stated that:

The central issue in this case is whether there is Substantial evidence in the record to support the Board's decision as being reasonable. I am unable to say there is. . . .

I find the record inadequate to determine the Reasonableness of the decision to limit Medical Park access to Lake Otis Parkway to egress only. (emphasis added) ¹²

We now turn to whether that standard was applied correctly. The superior court determined that:

There is not enough evidence of the likelihood that any significant traffic impact upon Woodside East would actually result from permitting two-way access instead of one-way access to support a conclusion that one-way access is reasonable. There is also an absence of evidence concerning whether it would be feasible to permit Medical Park two-way access and at the same time preclude Medical Park traffic from intruding further into Woodside East than necessary to enter the Medical Park.

Upon reviewing the record which that court had before it, we conclude that the superior court erred in deciding that there was not substantial evidence to support the decision of the board of adjustment.

The possibility of a compromise one-way access to the Medical Park P.U.D. was thoroughly considered by the City Council. It was mentioned at the Planning Commission meeting and at the first hearing of the City Council. It was one of the alternatives studied by the planning staff and presented to the Council at the second meeting.

There was ample testimony that full access for the Medical P.U.D. to Lake Otis would generate substantial traffic. At the hearing before the Planning Commission, Galt testified with respect to the present number of cars using the Medical Park complex:

Security is one of the main things that the Home Owners of Woodside East are worried about right now, and I pointed out earlier, in one of the earlier meetings, that the medical complex houses something like 500 cars a day, and are not related to the Woodside East Home Owners to the P.U.D., and there will be a movement of approximately 500 cars a day out of that development.

One of the residents of Woodside East testified that there had already been an impact on traffic within the residential neighborhood caused by a temporary unpaved access road opening onto Lake Otis from the medical complex. There was also testimony from a representative of the engineering firm that had originally designed Woodside East.

This driveway was intended and designed only to serve the benefit of the residents of Woodside East and to make it compatible with the commercial center development. It was not intended to be a public drive or public access, for the public to take short cuts between Lake Otis and Northern Lights or from Rogers Park across to the commercial center. . . . We wanted this type of a traffic flow stopped, probably even more than (the residents) did and we attempted very diligently to minimize a traffic pattern that would be conducive to a rapid flow or heavy traffic flow across this project area.

I think that what you have heard tonight implies that if this driveway access to the medical center were now open again, it would, he would be asking for this very thing to happen, as...