State ex rel. Manchester Imp. Co. v. City of Winchester, 51614
| Decision Date | 14 March 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,No. 51614,51614,1 |
| Citation | 400 S.W.2d 47 |
| Parties | STATE of Missouri ex rel. MANCHESTER IMPROVEMENT CO., Inc., Appellant, v. CITY OF WINCHESTER, a Municipal Corporation, Herbert Dyck, Mayor, James Rigley, Alderman, Wayne Kossman, Alderman, Richard Zielmann, Alderman, Ronald M. Lloyd, Alderman, and Edward R. Dabler, Building Commissioner, Respondents |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Robert C. Jones, Ziercher, Tzinberg, Human & Michenfelder, Clayton, for appellant.
Boedeker & Weil, Edgard G. Boedeker, Clayton, for respondents.
HIGGINS, Commissioner.
Mandamus to compel respondents to issue a permit. Upon trial the alternative writ was quashed and relator's prayer for an absolute writ was denied. The question is whether Winchester's zoning ordinance as applied to appellant is unconstitutional and void in violation of Article I, Section 10, Constitution of Missouri, V.A.M.S.
The facts were stipulated: Relator owns Lots 1--10 and 20--27, Block 15, Manchester Hills, a subdivision of land in Winchester, a city of the fourth class in St. Louis County, Missouri, and said real property is zoned 'B' Commercial District by Winchester's Ordinance 103. Respondent officials are charged with the duties of issuing building permits, and relator duly applied for a building permit for construction of a gasoline filling station on a part of its land at the southeast corner of Manchester Road and Lindy Boulevard. Although relator had done all things and taken all actions required for issuance, the permit was refused for the reason that Ordinance 103 provides that a special permit must be obtained in order to erect a gasoline filling station in 'B' Commercial District.
Relator then applied for and was denied a special permit under Section VIII of the ordinance which provides: 'The Board of Aldermen may be special permit after public hearing authorize under such conditions as it may determine the location of any of the following * * * in a District from which they are prohibited or limited * * *.
'j) Gasoline or oil filling stations in the 'B' Commercial District.'
Winchester's population is 1,350 and it contains some 375 single family dwellings and one delicatessen. It fronts for one-half mile on the south side of Manchester and is bounded on the west by the City of Ballwin and on the east by the City of Manchester. Manchester contains four gasoline stations and Ballwin has ten. The nearest such station to Winchester in Manchester is diagonally adjacent to Winchester at Sulpher Springs Road, and in Ballwin the nearest station is three-tenths' mile west of the west limits of Winchester. Relator's property is four-tenths' mile from the nearest station on the east and five-tenths' mile from the nearest on the west.
Appellant contends that the court erred in not issuing a peremptory writ of mandamus ordering respondents to issue the requested permit 'because there were no standards in section VIII of the zoning ordinance * * * applicable to special use permits, and that, consequently, said section VIII was null, void and unconstitutional and thereby ordinance No. 103 (zoning ordinance) as applied to relator's property violated Article I, Section 10, of the Constitution of the State of Missouri, 1945.'
When the legislative body of a city chooses, as Winchester did here, to delegate to itself the discretionary power to enforce its special permit regulation, it acts administratively in passing on applications for such permits and in thus enforcing the legislation previously enacted; and such discretion must be circumscribed by sufficient standards to require it to be reasonably, not arbitrarily, exercised. State ex rel. Ludlow v. Guffey, Mo., 306 S.W.2d 552, 556(1--3), 558(5). In State v. Guffey, supra, the court held that Section 13 of the Webster Groves zoning ordinance contained sufficient standards for the guidance of the administrator. That ordinance provided, l.c. 554: "The City Council may, by special permit after public hearing, authorize the location of any of the following buildings or uses in any district from which they are prohibited by this ordinance.' Then follow twelve numbered 'buildings or uses' including, as number 11, gasoline and oil filling stations, restricted, however, to C and D commercial districts and E industrial district.' The ordinance then makes provisions absent from the Winchester ordinance: ...
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