Case Title: Friends of the Motherhouse v. City of Portland

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2016 ME 178

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2016-12-08T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2016 ME 178 
Docket: 
Cum-16-225 
Argued: 
November 10, 2016 
 
Decided: 
December 8, 2016 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ. 
 
 
FRIENDS OF THE MOTHERHOUSE et al. 
 
v. 
 
CITY OF PORTLAND et al. 
 
 
MEAD, J. 
 
[¶1]  Friends of the Motherhouse, a nonprofit corporation, and Raymond 
Foote and Barbara Weed (collectively “Friends”) appeal from a summary 
judgment entered by the Superior Court (Cumberland County, Warren, J.) in 
favor of the defendant City of Portland and intervenors Sea Coast at Baxter 
Woods Associates, LLC, and Motherhouse Associates LP (intervenors 
collectively “Sea Coast”).  The court entered judgment on Friends’ complaint 
seeking a declaration that the Portland City Council’s rezoning of a parcel 
owned by Sea Coast was invalid.  We conclude that the Council acted within its 
broad legislative authority and affirm the judgment. 
 
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I.  FACTS AND PROCEDURE 
 
[¶2]  Although the facts, drawn from the summary judgment record, are 
taken in the light most favorable to Friends, see Sullivan v. St. Joseph’s Rehab. & 
Residence, 2016 ME 107, ¶ 2, 143 A.3d 1283, in this case Friends admitted the 
statement of material facts filed by Sea Coast in its entirety. 
 
[¶3]  Sea Coast has a purchase and sale agreement to buy a 17.5-acre 
parcel located on Stevens Avenue in Portland (the property) that is the site of a 
private high school; St. Catherine’s Hall, which is used as a residence by retired 
Sisters of Mercy; and the vacant St. Joseph’s Convent, known as the 
“Motherhouse.”  Sea Coast intends to give the high school a twenty-five-year 
lease, retain St. Catherine’s Hall’s current use, develop the Motherhouse into a 
multifamily dwelling consisting of eighty-eight affordable and market-rate 
senior housing units, and develop the surrounding grounds into a retirement 
community consisting of additional dwelling units and assisted living facilities. 
 
[¶4]  On March 4, 2015, Sea Coast requested a zoning amendment that, 
after some revision, sought to have a 13.5-acre portion of the property that did 
not include the high school and St. Catherine’s Hall rezoned from R-5 residential 
to R-5A residential.  As described in Portland’s comprehensive plan, “[t]he 
 
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permitted residential uses in the R-5a1 zone are very similar to those in the 
R-5 zone, except that multiplexes are not allowed.  The other significant 
difference is that PRUDs [planned residential unit developments] may be 
developed at a higher density.” 
 
[¶5]  On May 12, after notice and a public hearing, the Planning Board 
voted unanimously to recommend that the Council approve a zoning map 
amendment rezoning the Sea Coast property as proposed, and approve 
amendments to the text of the zoning ordinance having general applicability 
concerning the R-5A zone.  The Planning Board’s report to the Council 
contained an explicit finding that the amendments were consistent with 
Portland’s comprehensive plan. 
 
[¶6]  The Council held a public hearing and voted to adopt the text 
amendments, while tabling the proposed map amendment.  Sea Coast then 
reduced the portion of the property to be rezoned as R-5A to 7.51 acres, in the 
process reducing the number of potential housing units on the property by 
eighty-five.  The Council unanimously approved the revised map amendment 
on July 6, rezoning the 7.51-acre portion of the property to R-5A. 
                                         
1  The comprehensive plan designates the zone as “R-5a”; the zoning ordinance, Planning Board, 
City Council, and Superior Court designate the zone as “R-5A.”  We will use “R-5A” throughout the 
remainder of this opinion. 
 
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[¶7]  Following the Council’s rezoning action, Sea Coast applied to the 
Planning Board for a four-lot subdivision of the entire property, as well as a 
subdivision in the Motherhouse consisting of sixty-six affordable and 
twenty-two market-rate senior housing units.  The Planning Board approved 
the application on August 11, 2015.  No appeal from that action has been taken. 
 
[¶8]  On October 23, 2015, Friends filed a two-count complaint for 
declaratory judgment in the Superior Court seeking to invalidate the Council’s 
rezoning action.  The complaint asserted that the comprehensive plan required 
that R-5A zones be created only by contractual or conditional rezoning, and that 
the map and textual amendments were “substantively inconsistent with the 
Comprehensive Plan’s goals and policies for the Deering Center/Stevens 
Avenue neighborhood.” 
 
[¶9]  Sea Coast moved for summary judgment and the City joined in the 
motion.  In a judgment dated April 19, 2016, the court concluded that 
the zoning code and map amendments at issue are “in basic 
harmony” with Portland’s Comprehensive Plan . . . and . . . the 
rezoning of 7.51 acres of the St. Joseph’s convent site to R-5A did 
not have to be accomplished by conditional or contract zoning.  
Accordingly, Intervenors are entitled to summary judgment 
granting declaratory relief to that effect. 
 
Friends appealed. 
 
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II.  DISCUSSION 
 
[¶10]  We review the entry of a summary judgment de novo, and will 
“affirm the grant of summary judgment if the record reflects that there is no 
genuine issue of material fact and the movant is entitled to a judgment as a 
matter of law.”  Remmel v. City of Portland, 2014 ME 114, ¶ 11, 102 A.3d 1168 
(quotation marks omitted).  In Remmel we set out the standards of review 
applicable to this case, in which we are again called upon to review a zoning 
decision of the Portland City Council: 
Our review of the City Council’s action must respect that zoning is 
a legislative act and must give deference to the legislative body.  
Judicial review of a . . . rezoning decision is ultimately limited to 
determining whether the City Council could rationally have 
adopted the [new] zone in light of the evidence presented to it, the 
various policies articulated in the comprehensive plan, and the 
mandate of [the applicable statute]. 
 
. . . . 
 
By statute, zoning ordinances and subsequent rezoning actions 
must be “pursuant to and consistent with a comprehensive plan 
adopted by the municipal legislative body.” 30-A M.R.S. § 4352(2) 
[(2015)].  When considering whether a rezoning action is 
“consistent with” a city’s comprehensive plan, a court must 
determine whether the City Council could have, from the evidence 
before it, found that the rezoning was in basic harmony with the 
comprehensive plan.  The challenger bears the burden of proving 
that the amendment is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan.  
 
A zoning or rezoning action need not perfectly fulfill the goals of a 
comprehensive plan; it may be in basic harmony with the plan so 
 
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long as it strikes a reasonable balance among the municipality's 
various zoning goals or overlaps considerably with the plan.  In 
addition, a comprehensive plan is considered as a whole; a 
municipality may conclude that a rezoning action is consistent with 
a comprehensive plan when it is in harmony with some provisions 
of the plan, even if the action appears inconsistent with other 
provisions of the plan. 
 
Id. ¶¶ 1, 12-14 (alterations, citations and quotation marks omitted); see also 
Golder v. City of Saco, 2012 ME 76, ¶ 11, 45 A.3d 697.  We review the Council’s 
factual determinations for clear error.  Remmel, 2014 ME 114, ¶ 21 n.5, 
102 A.3d 1168. 
 
[¶11]  The evidence before the Council included the Planning Board’s 
report.  In that report, the Planning Board found that the Sea Coast project was 
consistent with the purpose of the R-5A zone as set out in the comprehensive 
plan, which is 
[t]o provide for moderate-density residential development in 
off-peninsula sections that can provide a unique residential living 
experience with a high degree of natural site amenities; and to 
provide areas of the city in the general proximity of the peninsula 
that have the ability for adequate municipal services, including 
traffic corridors with adequate traffic capacity, that can 
appropriately accommodate a more intensive use of land than 
other lower-density zoned land and be compatible with 
surrounding neighborhoods; and to increase affordable housing 
opportunities in off-peninsula locations by providing a moderate 
density zone. 
 
 
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The Planning Board additionally identified “[g]oals and policies” stated in the 
comprehensive plan that it found to be relevant to the Sea Coast proposal, 
including several focusing on the need for an adequate housing supply for the 
City’s residents in general, and for senior citizens at all income levels in 
particular. 
 
[¶12]  Given the portions of the comprehensive plan identified by the 
Planning Board and considered by the Council, and applying Remmel and the 
deference to the Council’s decision that it requires, 2014 ME 114, ¶ 12, 
102 A.3d 1168, Friends did not meet its burden to prove that the Council’s 
action rezoning part of the Motherhouse property to allow the development of 
senior housing—while retaining the high school and St. Catherine’s Hall in their 
original zone—was not “in basic harmony with the comprehensive plan.”  
Id. ¶ 13 (quotation marks omitted). 
 
[¶13]  Friends’ argument that the amendments are inconsistent with the 
comprehensive plan because the Council did not employ conditional or contract 
zoning is not persuasive.  The comprehensive plan does not specify a particular 
method for rezoning a property as R-5A, and says nothing about conditional or 
contract zoning at all in the section defining the R-5A zone.  It says only that 
 
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“[t]he R-5a is applied though rezoning when a site and development proposal 
meets the intent of this zoning classification.” 
 
[¶14]  The zoning ordinance—not the comprehensive plan—formerly 
required conditional or contract zoning in order to create an R-5A zone 
containing a planned residential unit development, but the Council chose to 
follow the recommendation of the Planning Board and changed the ordinance 
to eliminate that requirement.  As the Planning Board noted, the 
comprehensive plan explicitly allows such a change in providing that 
“[p]otential text amendments will be considered to update the residential zones 
in conformance with the recommendations of [the comprehensive plan].”  
“[B]asic harmony with the comprehensive plan,” not harmony with the former 
zoning ordinance, is the test that we apply when reviewing the Council’s zoning 
decision.  Remmel, 2014 ME 114, ¶¶ 13-14, 102 A.3d 1168 (quotation marks 
omitted).  Because that test is satisfied in this case, the court did not err in 
finding that Sea Coast was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. 
 
[¶15]  Having concluded that summary judgment was appropriately 
granted, we do not reach the alternative argument advanced by Sea Coast and 
the City that even if the Council’s rezoning action conflicted with the 
 
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comprehensive plan, the Planning Board’s approval of Sea Coast’s subdivision 
application remains valid because Friends did not appeal from that action. 
 
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
On the briefs: 
 
David A. Lourie, Esq., Cape Elizabeth, for appellants Friends of the 
Motherhouse, Raymond Foote, and Barbara Weed 
 
Danielle P. West-Chuhta, Esq., City of Portland, Portland, for appellee City 
of Portland 
 
Natalie L. Burns, Esq., and Mark A. Bower, Esq., Jensen Baird Gardner & 
Henry, Portland, for appellees Motherhouse Associates LP and Sea Coast 
at Baxter Woods Associates 
 
 
At oral argument: 
 
David A. Lourie, Esq., for appellants Friends of the Motherhouse, 
Raymond Foote, and Barbara Weed 
 
Danielle P. West-Chuhta, Esq., for appellee City of Portland 
 
Natalie L. Burns, Esq., for appellees Motherhouse Associates LP and Sea 
Coast at Baxter Woods Associates 
 
 
 
Cumberland County Superior Court docket number CV-2015-480 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY