Red Maple Properties v. Zoning Com'n of Town of Brookfield

• Decision Date: 18 June 1992
• Docket Number: No. 14341,14341
• Citation: 222 Conn. 730,610 A.2d 1238
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: RED MAPLE PROPERTIES v. ZONING COMMISSION OF the TOWN OF BROOKFIELD et al.

Page 1238

610 A.2d 1238

222 Conn. 730

RED MAPLE PROPERTIES v. ZONING COMMISSION OF the TOWN OF BROOKFIELD et al.

No. 14341.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Jan. 16, 1992.

Decided June 18, 1992.

Vincent P. McCarthy, New Milford, for appellant (plaintiff).

James J. Carroll, New Haven, for appellees (named defendant et al.).

Before SHEA, CALLAHAN, GLASS, BORDEN and BERDON, JJ.

BERDON, Associate Justice.

The principal issue in this appeal is whether a real estate developer, who sought a permit from a local zoning commission, had a property interest protected by the substantive component of the due process clause of the federal constitution. The plaintiff, Red Maple Properties, brought suit against the defendants, the zoning commission of the town of Brookfield (commission) and its members, ¹ pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ² claiming that its civil rights had been violated by the actions of the defendants in preventing the use of its property as a multi-unit condominium project after the plaintiff had received approval for two units. After the close of the plaintiff's case-in-chief, the trial court granted the defendants' motion for a directed verdict and this appeal followed from the judgment rendered thereon. ³ We now affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The relevant facts are as follows. The plaintiff is a limited partnership formed for the purpose of developing a parcel of land consisting of approximately 133 acres, along Route 133 in Brookfield. The plaintiff, through its agent and general partner, Gull Development Corporation, entered into option agreements to purchase two pieces of land, which together comprised the 133 acre parcel.

The plaintiff sought to develop the parcel in phases for an expandable condominium project totalling 206 units. On January 13, 1983, the plaintiff filed a formal application with the defendants for approval of two units, known as "phase I," which was submitted as an application for design review approval. In February, 1983, the plaintiff, through its engineer, Paul Carroccio, and its representatives, Joseph and Susan Fritz, met informally with the then commission chairman, Alan Sniffin, and a commission member, William Schappert, to discuss the application. The plaintiff claimed at trial that at this meeting Sniffin and Schappert had given it "conceptual approval" for the entire 206 unit project, provided it complied with the zoning regulations in effect at that time.

A public hearing on the plaintiff's application for phase I was conducted on April 14, 1983. At the hearing, Sniffin stated that the commission was reviewing the development potential of 206 units on the plaintiff's land. On April 20, 1983, Sniffin sent the plaintiff's engineers a letter seeking additional information about the project, including data regarding wetlands protection and water supplies and the designation of local access drives. On June 23, 1983, the defendants approved the application for design review with respect to the two units.

On July 12, 1983, a lawsuit, which was subsequently withdrawn in 1985, was filed by some Brookfield residents appealing the decision of the defendants granting approval for phase I. In late 1984, the conservation commission proposed an amendment to § 242-404D of [222 Conn. 734] the Brookfield zoning regulations, which provides for multifamily dwellings, including condominiums. The proposal sought, in effect, to place a "cap" on the number of multifamily dwellings allowed in the town. The defendants held public hearings, at which the plaintiff appeared and testified against the proposed amendment. On May 23, 1985, the defendants approved a modification of the regulation limiting multifamily dwelling projects to 150 units. ⁴ Prior to the change in the regulations, the plaintiff had not sought approval of any additional phases of its planned project. On October 24, 1985, the plaintiff sent the commission a letter inquiring whether its project would be "grandfathered," or exempted, under the new regulation. Schappert responded that under any new application submitted by the plaintiff, the commission would exempt only the two units, which had previously been approved.

The plaintiff brought the present § 1983 action in Superior Court claiming that its civil rights were violated by the defendants because the amendment to the regulation was arbitrary and capricious and was intended to thwart the plaintiff's entire project, which the plaintiff claimed had been given "conceptual approval." The plaintiff claimed at trial that it was entitled to approval of the entire project, and that its entitlement was a protected property interest sufficient to trigger federal substantive due process rights. In its amended complaint, the plaintiff also claimed it was deprived of its procedural due process rights. The plaintiff also pleaded but subsequently withdrew a claim of equitable estoppel.

The trial court granted the defendants' motion for a directed verdict upon concluding that the defendants were vested with broad discretion as to whether to approve an application for design review, and that this broad discretion manifestly overcame and defeated any claim that the plaintiff had established an entitlement allowing it to invoke the constitutional protections of the fourteenth amendment. The trial court summarily dismissed the plaintiff's claim of "conceptual approval."

The gravamen of the plaintiff's appeal is that it has a property interest in the zoning approval for its entire project, and that the defendants' actions arbitrarily and capriciously deprived it of its property interest in the approval, which violated its federal substantive due process rights. The plaintiff also claims on appeal that the trial court improperly: (1) found that the plaintiff had not advanced a procedural due process claim; and (2) excluded as irrelevant certain testimony of the plaintiff's project engineer, Paul Carroccio. We agree with the trial court that the plaintiff did not have a property interest protected by the substantive component of the due process clause of the federal constitution, and, therefore, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. We also reject the other claims of the plaintiff.

I

At the outset, we note that although we do not generally favor directed verdicts; John T. Brady & Co. v. Stamford, 220 Conn. 432, 440, 599 A.2d 370 (1991); "[a] verdict may properly be directed where the decisive question is one of law. Rich v. Dixon, 153 Conn. 52, 61-62, 212 A.2d 417 (1965); Sedita v. Steinberg, 105 Conn. 1, 5, 134 A. 243 (1926)." Gottesman v. Aetna Ins. Co., 177 Conn. 631, 634, 418 A.2d 944 (1979). Therefore, if the trial court properly determined that, as a matter of law, the actions of the defendants had not violated the plaintiff's substantive due process rights, then the trial court was correct in directing the verdict because " '[i]t is merely reaching more speedily and directly a result which would inevitably be reached in the end.' People's Savings Bank v. Borough of Norwalk, 56 Conn. 547, 556, 16 A. 257 (1888); Simmons v. Southern Connecticut Gas Co., 7 Conn.App. 245, 250, 508 A.2d 785 (1986)." Petriello v. Kalman, 215 Conn. 377, 383, 576 A.2d 474 (1990).

The issue of whether a land developer has a protected property interest in the issuance of a permit that affords it substantive due process rights is one of first impression for this court. Therefore, we will look to the federal courts and, more specifically, to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, for guidance. The disparate analytical treatment of the issue in the federal courts is thoroughly outlined in RRI Realty Corporation v. Incorporated Village of Southampton, 870 F.2d 911 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 893, 110 S.Ct. 240, 107 L.Ed.2d 191 (1989) (RRI ). In RRI, Judge Newman, writing for the majority, began the court's discussion of the issue by stating that the "[f]ederal courts have followed a somewhat uneven course in explicating the rationale for and the extent to which the substantive component of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects landowners in disputes with local agencies empowered to limit the permissible uses of their property." Id. at 914. In tracing the genesis of such a claim, the court in RRI stated that "[t]he initial effort to subject local land use decisions to constitutional scrutiny involved challenges to new zoning restrictions imposed upon property owners. The Supreme Court's first consideration of such a challenge, though occurring in an era when substantive due process was often a formidable protection against governmental regulation, met with significant rebuff. Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 47 S.Ct. 114, 71 L.Ed. 303 (1926). The Supreme Court ruled that zoning regulations will survive substantive due process challenge unless they are 'clearly arbitrary and unreasonable, having no substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals, or general welfare.' Id. at 395, 47 S.Ct. at 121." Id., 870 F.2d at 915.

Federal courts, when faced with early cases involving property owners seeking a change in the zoning regulations, applied the deferential standard of Village of Euclid without stating whether the property interest at stake was the land owned by the plaintiff or the zone change for which the plaintiff was applying. Id. Although the issue in Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972), was an interest in employment and not land, and involved procedural due process rights rather than substantive due process rights, the United States Supreme Court expanded the concept of property to include not only what is owned, but also what is sought. The court stated that to be a protected property right, there must be "a legitimate claim of entitlement." Id. at 577, 92 S.Ct. at 2709.

It is at this point that the federal courts have diverged in their analysis of substantive due process...