Sun Oil Company v. Village of New Hope , 300 Minn. 326 ( 1974 )

Rogosheske, Justice.

Sun Oil Company brought this declaratory judgment action to compel the village of New Hope to rezone a tract of land owned by Sun Oil from Limited Business (LB) to General Business (GB) and to waive the existing platting ordinance to allow erection of a gasoline service station on the land. The trial court granted judgment in favor of plaintiff, ordering the village council to change the zoning classification of plaintiff’s property from LB to GB. After a denial of its motion for amended findings, defendant village appealed from the judgment entered. Since the undisputed facts establish that the'village’s denial of the rezoning request was based upon the village’s reasonable adherence to its comprehensive zoning ordinance, we reverse.

The parties agree that the operative facts are undisputed. Sun Oil’s approximately 1-acre rectangular tract of unimproved land, referred to as the subject property, is located in defendant village at the southwest corner of the intersection of 36th Avenue North and Hillsboro Avenue approximately 100 feet east of the exit ramp for northbound traffic from County Road No. 18 to 36th Avenue North. It has a frontage of 215 feet on 36th Avenue North, which runs east and west, and 200 feet on Hillsboro Avenue, which runs north and south. It lies in the northeast corner of a larger 6.25-acre tract of unimproved land abutted by County Road No. 18 on the west, 36th Avenue North on the north, Hillsboro Avenue on the east, and 35th Avenue North (if it were extended westerly) on the south. Immediately across 36th Avenue North from the subject property is a Shell service station. The construction of the Shell station in 1967, and subsequently the construction of a shopping center on an approximately 3-acre tract surrounding the Shell station on the north, were approved in November 1966 upon an application for a zoning change by the then owner of that tract.

Sun Ray D-X Oil Company, which later merged with Sun Oil Company, obtained an option to purchase the subject property in December 1966. The purchase was consummated on January 3, 1969. An application to the village to change the zoning classification from LB to GB was made October 9, 1968.

On January 18, 1960, the village, in preparation for revising its existing zoning regulations, published a comprehensive development plan after an extensive study by the village planning commission, the village planner, and professional planning consultants hired by the village.¹ The development plan designated the subject property and the surrounding unimproved and vacant land, about 6 acres in area on the south and 4 acres in area on the north of 36th Avenue North, for potential development as shopping centers. The plan also contemplated that the east-west highway, 36th Avenue North, would be a major arterial highway and that County Road No. 18, which then intersected 36th Avenue North at grade, would be a limited-access freeway.

Implementing the plan on June 23, 1960, a new comprehensive zoning ordinance, Ordinance No. 60-19, became effective. It established, in comparison to earlier standards, a more sophisticated set of zoning classifications. The following pertinent classifications are reproduced from Ordinance No. 60-19:

“Section III District Provisions “A. Districts

“1. SR Single-Family Residence Districts: This is the general single-family residence areas.

“2. MR Multiple-Family Residence Districts: These are areas deemed well-suited to apartment developments.

“3. LB Limited Business Districts: These are areas that are particularly exposed to residential neighborhoods and are thus suitable only to those businesses having, relatively little incompatibility with residential use.

“4. RB Retail Business Districts: These are areas which, because of proximity to thoroughfare intersections and proper distance from similar centers, are suitable to those businesses catering to the shopping needs of the residential neighborhoods.

“5. GB General Business Districts: These areas are designed for those businesses that tend to service other businesses and industry rather than the homeowner. They also tend to be less compatible with residential areas than other types of business. Because of these factors, businesses in this zoning classification are concentrated and are as insulated as possible from residential areas.”

Subd. D of section III expressly classified the automobile service station as a permitted use only in the GB district. However, the ordinance provided that service stations might also be permitted in RB districts if special-use permits are obtained.

Under the 1960 . ordinance, two 200- by 200-foot areas located in the northeast and southeast corners of the intersection of 36th Avenue North and County Road No. 18 were rezoned from commercial to limited business. The stated purpose behind this reclassification was to advise the public that the vacant land near that intersection would be utilized for business use as stated in the comprehensive development plan but that the extent of such use could not be determined until the then indefinite plans for an interchange of highways 36th Avenue North and County Road No. 18 were completed. In addition, the 1960 comprehensive zoning ordinance merely continued the SR (single residence) classification of both the approximately 6.25-acre tract (including the subject property) surrounding the 200- by 200-foot LB zone in the southeast corner of the intersection and the approximately 3-acre tract (including the site of the present Shell station) surrounding the 200- by 200-foot LB zone in the northr east corner of the intersection, which SR classification had been assigned by a 1959 ordinance, Ordinance 59-13.²

Effective October 3, 1963, the village amended the 1960 zoning ordinance by adopting Ordinance No. 63-11. This amendment zoned as LB the 6.25-acre tract (including the subject property) at the southeast corner of the intersection of County Road No. 18 and 36th Avenue North. The same amendment zoned the land abutting the 6.25 acres on the south for multiple residential use. At the time of the 1963 amendment, the Hennepin County Highway Department’s plans for the intersection of County Road No. 18 and 36th Avenue North provided for an overpass with no access to County Road No. 18 from 36th Avenue North. Subsequently, the highway department adopted plans for a diamond interchange at County Road No. 18 and 36th Avenue North.³

In November 1966, the owner of the 200-foot parcelin the northeast corner of the intersection of County Road No. 18 and 36th Avenue North filed an application to rezone said parcel and the immediately abutting 3 acres from LB and SR, respectively, to RB. The application included a request for a special-use permit authorizing the building of an automobile service station on an approximately 1-acre parcel at the intersection of 36th Avenue North and Jordan Avenue and proposed that the balance of the requested RB property be used for a shopping-center. The service station referred to is the present Shell station, which has been in operation since it was constructed in early 1987. The proposed shopping center immediately adjacent to the Shell station is actually more of a neighborhood convenience center and was under construction at the time of trial. The village council approved said application and rezoned the above-described property to RB and granted a permit authorizing the construction of the Shell station.

Effective September 12, 1968, the comprehensive zoning ordinance was again amended, the effect of which eliminated the council’s authority to grant special-use permits to allow automobile service stations in RB zoning areas. Thereafter, service stations were permitted without restriction only in GB districts.

On October 9, 1968, Sun Oil made application to the village of New Hope to change the zoning classification of the subject property from LB to GB for the stated purpose of allowing the property to be used for the operation of a service station.⁴ At the same time, application was made for waiver of the platting ordinance as to the subject property. Hearing was granted before the village planning commission on November 5,-1968, at which one resident, Mr. James Johnston, objected to the proposed rezoning. According to the commission’s minutes, Mr. Johnston felt another station was unnecessary, was concerned about the lights at the site, and also felt that the entire tract of land at the southwest corner of 36th and Hillsboro should be considered as a single unit. Upon voice vote, the planning commission denied Sun Oil’s application. The commission’s “Staff Findings and Comments” noted:

“3. There is a service station immediately across 36th Avenue from the subject site. Under the current county plan all access between #18 and Hillsboro would be taken with the construction of the interchange. This in turn would create some development problems for the remaining parcel that fronts on 36th Ave. It would appear that the waiver of the platting ordinance should not be permitted until a development plan is submitted for the entire corner.

“4. The proposed rezoning also does not meet the commonly accepted standards for a change in zoning. It is true that the LB districts in the Village have not attracted much attention to date. The lack of development, however, is probably not the result of the zoning classification but rather because of a lack of a need for the uses permitted in the district — offices, medical and apartments. The currently permitted uses would make an excellent transitional use between the heavy traffic interchange and the single family use that exists or will develop to the south and east.”

After hearing the objections of three neighborhood residents and the contentions of counsel representing Sun Oil, the village council, on November 25, 1968, likewise denied the rezoning request.

It is most important for purposes of our review to characterize properly the village council’s action in denying Sun Oil’s petition for rezoning. While a municipal governing body acts in an administrative or quasi-judicial capacity when it acts to deny an application for a special-use permit, it is well established that it acts in a legislative capacity under its delegated police powers when it adopts or amends a zoning ordinance.⁵ Thus, when defendant’s village council acted in this case to deny Sun Oil’s petition to rezone or to enlarge the permitted use of a part of the village land area, it acted in its legislative capacity, for to effect the change requested an amendment to its existing zoning ordinances would have been necessary.

When judicially reviewing a legislative determination, the scope of review must necessarily be narrow. The rationale behind the limited nature of review in such cases is aptly set out in State ex rel. Howard v. Village of Roseville, 244 Minn. 343, 347, 70 N. W. 2d 404, 407 (1955):

“Insofar as zoning ordinances are concerned, it has frequently been held that what best furthers public welfare is a matter primarily for determination of the legislative body concerned * * *.

• “Even where the reasonableness of a zoning ordinance is debatable, or where there are conflicting opinions as to the desirability of the restrictions it imposes * * *, it is not the function of the courts to interfere with the legislative discretion on such issues.”

In order to challenge successfully the legislative body’s determination, proof must be submitted to establish either an unconstitutional taking or an action in excess of the powers delegated to the legislative body. See, 8A McQuillin, Municipal Corporations (3 ed.) § 25.279; Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. 272 U. S. 365, 47 S. Ct. 114, 71 L. ed. 303 (1926); State v. Houston, 210 Minn. 379, 298 N. W. 358 (1941).

Upon the evidence presented, the trial court determined that the denial of Sun Oil’s rezoning petition by the village council operated to deny Sun Oil equal protection of the laws and was discriminatory, unreasonable, capricious, arbitrary, and void. We are compelled to disagree.

In arguing for a rezoning of the subject property, Sun Oil places great importance on the fact that a similar use — that of an automobile service station — exists directly north of the subject property across 36th Avenue North. The trial transcript is permeated with testimony and stipulations by which Sun Oil attempts to show that its subject property would make a more suitable site for a service station than the present Shell station site. While these contentions, which were only weakly disputed at trial, may well be true, it is clear that such an approach does not necessarily indicate that the village council’s denial of the rezoning request was arbitrary or capricious.

It must be emphasized that in denying Sun Oil’s petition the village council was at all times acting in furtherance of its comprehensive zoning ordinance. Because the village council’s refusal to adopt the proposed rezoning was based on a desire to maintain its existing zoning structure, the proper mode of attack for Sun Oil was to prove that the 1960 comprehensive zoning ordinance as amended was arbitrary, capricious, or otherwise invalid, or that the neighborhood of the subject property had undergone such a substantial change since the enactment of the original LB zoning classification as to make GB the only reasonable classification for the subject property. In an analogous situation, the court in Hardesty v. Zoning Board, 211 Md. 172, 177, 126 A. 2d 621, 623 (1956) noted:

“* * * [W]hen an application is made for reclassification from one zone to another, there is a presumption that the original zoning was well planned and was intended to be more or less permanent. Before a zoning board rezones property there should be proof either that there was some mistake in the original zoning or that the character of the neighborhood had changed to such an extent that reclassification ought to be made. The burden of proof * * * is upon the proponents of the change.”

Scrutiny of the transcript reveals that Sun Oil offered no evidence before the village council or at trial which would support a finding that the most recent zoning of the subject property to LB was arbitrary, unreasonable, or otherwise invalid. Assuming, as we must, the validity of this zoning classification, we are compelled to regard the village council’s action in furtherance of its comprehensive zoning ordinance as a reasonable legislative determination not subject to judicial interference.

While a similar use exists directly across the street from the subject property, it is clear that mere physical proximity between existing and proposed land uses does not of itself merit a rezoning of the subject property. The village council is vested with the police power to establish zoning districts and, necessarily, to fix boundary lines. Moreover, it cannot be overlooked that, even had the village zoned the property south of 36th Avenue North (including the subject property) for BB use as it previously had zoned the site of the present Shell station across the street, Sun Oil would still not have been able to construct a service station on the subject property; such a use, since the 1968 zoning ordinance amendment, required a GB location.

We acknowledge, as Sun Oil argues, that the village’s 1960 development plan, which proposed that the intersection in question might in the future be a good location for a shopping center, tends to support Sun Oil’s contention that the subject property should be rezoned. However, the record establishes that a shopping center is a permitted use in an RB or GB zone; therefore a future rezoning to RB of the land south of 36th Avenue North would still allow a shopping center but would not permit a service station. And the construction of a shopping center north of 36th Avenue North does not itself require another shopping center on the south side of 36th Avenue North.

In ordering the village council to rezone the subject property, the trial court apparently relied on Pearce v. Village of Edina, 263 Minn. 553, 118 N. W. 2d 659 (1962). In that case, plaintiffs applied for rezoning of their property from “office building purposes” to “commercial use.” While the Edina council denied plaintiffs’ petitions for rezoning, the trial court, which was affirmed by this court, finding the council’s denial unreasonable, confiscatory, arbitrary, and void, ordered the rezoning. The Pearce case, however, is clearly distinguishable. Plaintiffs’ property in the Pearce case was virtually surrounded by commercial zoning and was characterized as a “peninsula” among commercial uses. Such is not the case with Sun Oil’s subject property, which is bounded by extensive zones of single and multiple residences as well as limited business and retail business zones. As suggested by this court in a similar case, Kelber v. City of St. Louis Park, 289 Minn. 456, 458, 185 N. W. 2d 526, 528 (1971), where we held that a denial of rezoning which results from a desire to further a comprehensive plan is not unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious, the petitioner for rezoning “paints with too broad a brush” in claiming that the subject property should be zoned for general business purposes because of the existence of a similar use across the street.

In reviewing the trial court’s treatment of the effect of the change of conditions in the neighborhood of the subject property, we also find error. In its findings, the trial court determined that the change in plans for the intersection of County Road No. 18 and 36th Avenue North from no interchange to a diamond interchange constituted a substantial change of conditions from those which existed at the time the LB classification was placed upon the subject property and that a rezoning of the subject property was therefore required. By automatically equating a substantial change in neighborhood conditions with a need to rezone the affected property, the trial court in effect substituted its judgment for that of the village council. As aptly expressed in Hardesty v. Zoning Board, 211 Md. 172, 177, 126 A. 2d 621, 623, the courts, in zoning cases, —

“* * * will not substitute their judgment for that of the legislative body if the question is fairly debatable. The courts will not substitute their judgment for that of the Board as to the wisdom of the action taken. The courts will reverse only where there are no grounds for reasonable debate and where the action of the Board is arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory or illegal.” (Citations omitted.)

Even though there may be a significant change in the character of the neighborhood of the subject property, such change in itself does not compel a rezoning “absent probative evidence that no reasonable use can be made of the property in its current zoning classification.” See, Wright v. McCubbin, 260 Md. 11, 13, 271 A. 2d 365, 366 (1970). While Sun Oil offered evidence to show that the diamond interchange resulted in greater traffic flow at the intersection in question, it offered no evidence to show that it could not make reasonable use of its property under the permitted uses of the existing LB classifications, e.g., as a medical or dental clinic, nursing home, or office building.

In denying Sun Oil’s petition for rezoning, the village council stated that it did not consider a service station to be the best use of the land. Instead, it chose to stand behind its comprehensive zoning ordinance which earmarked the southeast corner of the intersection of County Road No. 18 and 36th Avenue North for limited business use. Such a desire to perpetuate an area of land for certain permitted uses as established by a comprehensive plan does not, without evidence to the contrary, constitute arbitrary or capricious action on the part of the village council.

Since the undisputed facts establish that the village's denial of the rezoning petition was based upon a legislative determination to perpetuate its preexisting comprehensive zoning ordinance which was not proven invalid nor shown to deny Sun Oil a reasonable use of its land, the trial court erred in ordering rezoning.

Reversed.

1 The village’s first zoning ordinance was adopted in 1954. Under it, lands on both sides of 36th Avenue North were zoned commercial with gasoline service stations permitted in such zone upon the issuance of a special-use permit. In 1959, when a major revision of the 1954 ordinance was enacted eliminating large areas from the commercial zone, two 200- by 200-foot areas located in the northeast and southeast corners of the intersection of 36th Avenue North and County Road No. 18 were zoned commercial. Both of these areas were later substantially acquired by Hennepin County for the construction of the exit and entrance ramps from County Road No. 18 to 36th Avenue North. It is important to note that the 1959 ordinance also rezoned the surrounding lands SR (single residence), which included both the approximately 6.25-acre tract (including the subject property) surrounding the 200- by 200-foot commercial zone in the southeast corner of the intersection and the approximately 3-acre tract (including the site of the present Shell station) surrounding the 200- by 200-foot commercial zone in the northeast corner of the intersection.

2 See, footnote 1, supra.

3 The included sketch of the area in question shows the zoning classifications at the time the plans for the interchange were completed.

4 At this time, Sun Oil merely held an option to purchase the subject property and lacked legal title to the premises. As stated previously, it was not until January 3, 1969, after its application was denied, that Sun Oil consummated its purchase of the subject property.

5 See, Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. 272 U. S. 365, 47 S. Ct. 114, 71 L. ed. 303 (1926); State ex rel. Howard v. Village of Roseville, 244 Minn. 343, 70 N. W. 2d 404 (1955).