South Fork Coalition v. Board of Commissioners , 112 Idaho 89 ( 1986 )

BAKES, Justice.

The appellant, J.R. Hays & Sons, Inc., appeals from a district court order which overturned the Bonneville County commissioners’ preliminary approval of a planned unit development on Hays’s property. Hays raises, as a preliminary procedural issue, whether the respondent South Fork Coalition had standing to challenge the commissioners’ decision at the district court level. While it appears that South Fork Coalition does have standing, Glengary-Gamlin Protective Ass’n, Inc. v. Bird, 106 Idaho 84, 675 P.2d 344 (Ct.App.1983), the record is clear that the order of the Bonneville County Board of County Commissioners from which the appeal was taken to the district court was not a “final decision” within the meaning of I.C. § 67-5215(a), and accordingly was not an appeal-able order.

The Administrative Procedures Act provides in Section 67-5215(a) that “a person who has exhausted all administrative remedies available within the agency and who is aggrieved by a final decision in a contested case ... is entitled to judicial review under this act.”

The Bonneville County ordinance provides:

“Section 1-2520. Approval in Principle by the Commission.

“1. Within thirty (30) days after the public hearing the Commission shall review the preliminary development plan to determine if it is consistent with the intent and purpose of this Ordinance; whether the proposed development advances the general welfare of the community and neighborhood and whether the benefits, combination of various land uses and the interrelationship with the land uses in the surrounding area justify the deviation from standard district regulations. The Commission’s approval in principle of the preliminary development plan shall be necessary before an applicant may submit a final development plan. Approval in principle shall not be construed to endorse a precise location of uses, configuration of parcels or engineering feasibility.” BCZO § 1-2520 (emphasis added).

The Board of County Commissioners has not rendered any final decision on the application, and all administrative remedies have not been exhausted. The board has only “approved in principle the proposed planned unit development,” retaining jurisdiction to either approve or deny the final plan after they have reviewed it and after they have “placed such other restrictions [on it] as it deems advisable in the general welfare of the community and neighborhood____”

The appeal by the South Fork Coalition was therefore premature, and the district court should have dismissed the appeal. See State, Dept. of Law v. One 1955 Willys Jeep, 100 Idaho 150, 595 P.2d 299 (1979) (holding that where an appeal was taken from a non-appealable order, the appeal should be dismissed, even by the Court sua sponte, for lack of jurisdiction over the appeal).

Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the district court and remand with directions for the district court to dismiss the appeal. No costs allowed.

DONALDSON, C.J., and BISTLINE and HUNTLEY, JJ., concur.