Steinbach v. Green Lake Sanitary Dist.
| Citation | 715 N.W.2d 195,2006 WI 63 |
| Decision Date | 06 June 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 2003AP2245.,2003AP2245. |
| Parties | Daniel STEINBACH, Cynthia Steinbach, Chuck Rhein, Mary Rhein, Hugh Zwieg, Pamela Zwieg, Steve Kennedy, Karen Kennedy, Linus Schoepp, Donna Schoepp, Bob Van Metre, Barbara Van Metre, Jack Johnson, Beth Johnson, Leonard M. Teifeld, Anna Styka-Teifeld, Steve Swokowski, Julie Olson, Stout Krug Krug & Ryan, Gary Flatland, Peggy Flatland, John Waggoner, Karen Waggoner, William Bohnen, Linda Bohnen, Robert Connolly, Lynn Connolly, Bob Drisner, Ellen Drisner, John Tennyck, Art Krug, Dewi Krug, Carol Tennyck, Alan Ruud, and Susan Ruud, Petitioners-Respondents-Petitioners, v. GREEN LAKE SANITARY DISTRICT, Respondent-Appellant. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Wisconsin |
For the petitioners-respondents-petitioners there were briefs by Steven R. Sorenson and Sorenson Koenig Law Office, Ripon; and Kent A. Tess-Mattner and Schmidt Rupke Tess-Mattner & Fox, S.C., Brookfield, and oral argument by Steven R. Sorenson and Kent A. Tess-Mattner.
For the respondent-appellant there were briefs by William P. O'Connor, Mary Beth Peranteau and Wheeler, Van Sickle & Anderson, S.C., Madison, and oral argument by William P. O'Connor.
An amicus curiae brief was filed by Debra P. Conrad and Thomas D. Larson, Madison, on behalf of the Wisconsin Realtors Association.
¶ 1
This case requires us to decide whether a special assessment levied against 18 condominium owners (Petitioners) by the Green Lake Sanitary District (the District) to finance a sanitary sewer system was reasonable. We conclude that the sewer system benefited the Petitioners' property. However, we also conclude that one portion of the assessment, the availability charge, lacked a reasonable basis because: (1) there is no nexus between the availability charge assessed against the Petitioners and the District's recovery of "the capital cost to [it] to provide sanitary sewer service to individual lots, including the installation of a lateral stub from the sewer main to each lot";1 (2) other lots that have multiple habitable units and were provided the same sewer service through one four-inch stub, as were the Petitioners, were assessed only one availability charge; and (3) there is no showing that the Petitioners received a greater benefit than was provided to other lots that were affected by the sewer extension. Therefore, the availability charge was not levied uniformly and imposed an inequitable cost burden on the Petitioners as compared with the benefit accruing to them and to all benefited properties. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals decision and remand to the circuit court.
¶ 2 The Petitioners are the owners of residential condominium units in the Sunrise Point Resort & Yacht Club Condominium (the condominiums), an 18-unit condominium on Big Green Lake. The District is a town sanitary district organized under Subchapter IX of Wis. Stat. ch. 60. The District operates a wastewater treatment plant and a sanitary sewer collection system serving a portion of the lands within its boundaries. The treatment plant and initial sewer collection lines were constructed in the early 1990s and extended several times thereafter. They were financed by special assessments levied against owners of property served by the system.
¶ 3 The District is governed by an elected, three-member board of commissioners (Commissioners) that, pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 60.77(4) (2003-04),2 has the authority to project, plan, construct, and maintain a water, solid waste, and sewage system. In June, 2000, the Commissioners adopted a resolution to extend sanitary sewer service to additional lands within the District through the exercise of its special assessment powers under § 60.77(5)(f).3 The expansion plan included the condominiums.
¶ 4 The District issued a Special Assessment Report that included the expansion plan and specifications for the proposed sewer extension, an estimation of the project costs and a schedule of assessments against the properties to be served by the planned sewer improvements. It allocated special assessments to all properties included in the plan. The special assessments included two components: an "availability assessment," to cover the costs of making the sewer available to each lot in the plan,4 and a "connection assessment" to cover the costs of the infrastructure necessary for transportation of sewage to the treatment plant.5
¶ 5 The availability charge, $4,730,6 was levied against each lot or parcel of record receiving sewer service to recover the capital cost of the installation, including the installation of one four-inch pipe stub connecting the sewer main to the property edge of each lot. The connection charge, $5,930,7 was individually levied against every habitable unit on a lot and every structure connected to the sewer system on any lot that did not include a habitable building. Each Petitioner was assessed fully for both charges, even though the single lot on which all of the condominiums stand was provided with only one four-inch stub.
¶ 6 Pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 66.0703(12)(a), the Petitioners requested circuit court review of the District's levy of the special assessments and the District's inclusion of the condominiums in the extension of the sewage district. However, before briefing and oral arguments, the Petitioners informed the circuit court and the District that they were abandoning the claim relating to the inclusion of the condominiums in the expansion plan. The amount of the assessment remained in dispute.
¶ 7 The Petitioners alleged that the District's method for levying the assessments against them was unfair, arbitrary, and capricious, and in violation of Wis. Stat. § 66.0703 and the District's own assessment policy as set forth in the Resolution. The circuit court determined that the availability portion of the special assessment levied against the condominiums was not in accord with that levied on other properties similarly situated, and was therefore "incorrect."
¶ 8 In reaching this conclusion, the court noted that the Petitioners' aggregate property is listed by the Register of Deeds as one lot, although the individual condominium units are separate tax parcels, and that the District's Resolution levied one availability charge against each lot connected to the sewer main. The court also pointed out that the District installed only one stub to the Petitioners' property for connection to the sewer main. It ordered the District to reduce the availability charge of the assessment against each condominium unit to one-eighteenth (1/18) of the original $4,730 charge, or $263. This distributed one availability charge among the 18 Petitioners, whose single lot had been provided one four-inch stub. The court left the connection charge intact.8
¶ 9 The District appealed, and the court of appeals reversed, holding that the District's exercise of police power had been according to an accepted method of assessment, was not clearly unreasonable, and did not warrant interference by the courts. It ordered the availability charge reinstated as originally assessed by the District. It is that decision that we review.
¶ 10 The circuit court's determination that specially assessed property was benefited is a question of fact. Village of Egg Harbor v. Sarkis, 166 Wis.2d 5, 14, 479 N.W.2d 536 (Ct.App.1991). We affirm factual determinations unless they are clearly erroneous. Lac La Belle Golf Club v. Village of Lac La Belle, 187 Wis.2d 274, 281-82, 522 N.W.2d 277 (Ct.App.1994).
¶ 11 Whether the facts relating to a special assessment made pursuant to the police power fulfill the "reasonableness" standard is a question of law that we review de novo. Id. at 281, 522 N.W.2d 277. For purposes of judicial review of the exercise of a police power special assessment, the law presumes that the municipality proceeded reasonably in making the assessment, and the challenger bears the burden of going forward to establish prima facie evidence that the assessment was not reasonable. Id. at 281, 522 N.W.2d 277 (citing Peterson v. City of New Berlin, 154 Wis.2d 365, 371, 453 N.W.2d 177 (Ct.App. 1990)); see also Soo Line R.R. Co. v. City of Neenah, 64 Wis.2d 665, 671, 221 N.W.2d 907 (1974). However, once a challenger does so, the burden shifts to the entity levying the assessment "to show that the chosen assessment method comported with the statutory requirement that it" produce a reasonable assessment. Lac La Belle, 187 Wis.2d at 281, 522 N.W.2d 277 (citing Peterson, 154 Wis.2d at 371, 453 N.W.2d 177).
¶ 12 The District levied the special assessment under the authority granted in Wis. Stat. § 66.0703. Wis. Stat. § 60.77(5)(f). The meaning of § 66.0703 is not in dispute; however, we must determine whether the District's assessments met the statutory standard, as interpreted in prior court decisions. Section 66.0703 states, in pertinent part:
(1)(a) Except as provided in § 66.0721, as a complete alternative to all other methods provided by law, any city, town or village may, by resolution of its governing body, levy and collect special assessments upon property in a limited and determinable area for special benefits conferred upon the property by any municipal work or improvement; and may provide for the payment of all or any part of the cost of the work or improvement out of the proceeds of the special assessments.
(b) The amount assessed against any property for any work or improvement which does not represent an exercise of the police power may not exceed the value of the benefits accruing to the property. If an assessment represents an exercise of the police power, the assessment shall be upon a reasonable basis as determined by the governing body of the city, town or village.
The Petitioners contend that the assessment does not meet the...
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