Pride's Corner Concerned Citizens Ass'n v. Westbrook Bd. of Zoning Appeals

• Decision Date: 06 March 1979
• Citation: 398 A.2d 415
• Parties: PRIDE'S CORNER CONCERNED CITIZENS ASSOCIATION et al. v. The WESTBROOK BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS and the Portland Water District.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 415

398 A.2d 415

PRIDE'S CORNER CONCERNED CITIZENS ASSOCIATION et al. v. The WESTBROOK BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS and the Portland Water District.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

March 6, 1979.

Lund, Wilk, Scott & Goodall by Clifford H. Goodall (orally), Augusta, for plaintiffs.

Verrill & Dana by Michael T. Healy (orally), Charles A. Harvey, Jr., Portland, for Water Dist.

Gagan & Desmond by James E. Gagan (orally), Michael D. Cooper, Westbrook, for Westbrook Bd. of Zoning Appeals.

Before McKUSICK, C. J., and POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and GODFREY, JJ.

ARCHIBALD, Justice.

Reduced to its essential procedural status, this becomes an appeal by one plaintiff, namely, Basil R. Swan, from a decision of the Superior Court in an 80B proceeding affirming a decision of the Westbrook Board of Zoning Appeals (Board) in which the Portland Water District (District) was granted a special exception allowing it to construct and operate a sludge composting facility on its Westbrook property. Mr. Swan likewise owned property in Westbrook which abutted that of the District.

We deny the appeal.

Before discussing the merits, we must determine whether Mr. Swan had the necessary standing to appeal from the Superior Court decision. ¹ Both the Board and the District argue that (a) Mr. Swan did not formally become a party before the Board at its hearings, and (b) he demonstrated no particularized injury or damage as a result of the decision reached by the Board.

30 M.R.S.A. § 2411(3)(F) provides:

An appeal may be taken, within 30 days after the decision is rendered, by any Party to Superior Court from any order, relief or denial in accordance with the Maine Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 80B. The hearing before the Superior Court shall be without a jury. (emphasis supplied)

The record furnished on appeal makes it apparent that Mr. Swan did, in fact, appear on October 12, 1977, in person before the Board at the initial hearing on the District's request for a special exception to authorize the construction of the composting facility. A subsequent meeting was held on October 26, 1977, at which Mr. Swan was identified as "one of 96 citizens from the Pride's Corner area." The record of these meetings indicates that he propounded several questions which were pertinent to the issue being considered by the Board. Following the October 26th meeting the Board indicated its intent to grant the special exception but subject to "conditions to be worked out to the correct legal language."

Subsequently, a petition to reconsider and deny was filed with the Board and Mr. Swan was identified therein as one of the petitioners. A hearing was held on this petition on November 16, 1977, which resulted in the formal granting of the special exception but subject to several enumerated conditions. ² The 80B proceeding was initiated by complaint dated November 23, 1977, but premised on the previously described proceeding before the Board. One of the plaintiffs was Basil R. Swan. A justice of the Superior Court affirmed the decision of the Westbrook Board of Zoning Appeals, from which decision this appeal ensued.

District-appellee asserts that having failed to enter an appearance, request and be granted the right to fully participate in the proceeding, Basil Swan cannot be a "party" within the meaning of Section 2411(3)(F). We disagree.

Within a statutory scheme a word should be construed according to its usage as a legal term of art only when it appears that such a construction was legislatively intended. See Town of Arundel v. Swain, Me., 374 A.2d 317 (1977); Davis v. State, Me., 306 A.2d 127 (1973). For two reasons we do not believe that the legislature intended "party" within Section 2411(3)(F) to be construed in terms of Rules 17-25, M.R.Civ.P. First, as the record in this case clearly indicates, matters before a local board of appeals are conducted in a fashion far less formal than court proceedings or a hearing before the Public Utilities Commission. ³ To superimpose a formal structure of appearance, withdrawal and substitution of parties upon an otherwise open proceeding seems purposeless and unrealistic. This conclusion is reinforced by an obvious legislative attempt to allow appeals by persons aggrieved by the action of various administrative agencies. See, e. g., Matter of Lappie, Me., 377 A.2d 441, 442 n. 3. To construe "party" within Section 2411(3)(F) to mean any more than a participant in the proceedings who is aggrieved by the action of the appeals board would be contrary to other obvious expressions of legislative intent. ⁴

As a "party" within the context of Section 2411(3)(F), Mr. Swan must also suffer a particularized injury from the order of the Board in order to have standing to seek judicial review of that order. Since Mr. Swan is an abutting land owner, the sludge disposal operation could conceivably pose problems of seepage, odors, noise from traffic, and the pollution of surface waters. Mr. Swan, thus, had a basis for alleging grievance and is, therefore, "a person having standing to seek judicial review of the Board's order by virtue of this potential for particularized injury." Matter of Lappie, supra at 443.

Having determined that Mr. Swan had standing to appeal, we may now examine the record in its totality to determine if the Board acted properly in granting the application of the District. Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 737, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972).

The authority of the District is clearly delineated by the legislative act which created it. Chapter 84, Private and Special Laws of 1975, chartered the Portland Water District, constituting it a public municipal corporation with the right to operate in several municipalities in Cumberland County, including Westbrook. Within its purposes is authorization to "provide facilities for the handling . . . of . . . sewage consisting of domestic, commercial, municipal and industrial wastes." The same act also authorized it to provide "treatment facilities" for "transmission and Disposal Of waste water and Sewage received from municipal collection systems." ⁵ (emphasis supplied)

Section 3 of the enabling act authorized the District, inter alia, to "purify, discharge and Dispose of all waste water and Sewage collected by the participating municipalities." (emphasis supplied) Section 3 continues: "All incidental powers, rights, and privileges necessary to the accomplishment of the object(ives) herein set forth are granted to the district."

Reverting for a moment to the facts, the District owns a considerable acreage in Westbrook, some of which is in the residential zone in which Mr. Swan resides. The proposed...