Title: Perkins v. Town of Ogunquit

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

Decided March 2, 1998. William C. Knowles (orally), and Seth W. Brewster, Verrill & Dana, Portland, for Rena & Newell Perkins. E. Stephen Murray (orally), Murray, Plumb & Murray, Portland, for Roger & Lee LaPierre and Lilly Andrews. Michael J. O'Toole (orally), Woodman & Edmands, P.A., Biddeford, for Robert Scanlon, Jr. Penny Littell, Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau & Pachios, L.L.C., Portland, for Town of Ogunquit. Before ROBERTS, CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, and LIPEZ, JJ. CLIFFORD, Justice. [¶ 1] Robert W. Scanlon[1] appeals from a judgment entered after a non-jury trial in the Superior Court (York County, Fritzsche, J.) vacating the Town of Ogunquit's waiver of a frontage requirement granted to Scanlon. Scanlon contends that the court erred in deciding that the Ogunquit Planning Board lacked authority to waive certain performance standards set out in the Town's zoning ordinance. Finding no error, we affirm the judgment. [¶ 2] Robert Scanlon owns improved property in the Town of Ogunquit at 9 Beach *107 Street on which is located a building (the Fox House). Scanlon's property is a non-conforming lot with frontage of between 74.26 and 74.94 feet in a zoning district requiring seventy-five feet of frontage.[2] Rena Perkins, Roger and Lee LaPierre, and Lilly Andrews are abutting property owners. [¶ 3] In the summer of 1995, the 100-year-old Worster House located across the street from the Fox House was scheduled for demolition by its owner in order to build a parking lot. Scanlon submitted numerous proposals to the Town to move the Fox House to the rear of his lot, and to move the Worster House from across the street to the front of the Fox House lot to save it from destruction. [¶ 4] On May 16, 1996 the Town's Board of Appeals denied Scanlon a variance from the 75-foot street frontage requirement on the Fox House lot because he was unable to establish hardship pursuant to 30-A M.R.S.A. § 4353 (1996 & Supp.1997).[3] The Board did grant him a special exception to store the Worster House on the Fox House Lot, apparently contingent upon his securing a waiver from the frontage requirement pursuant to alternate authority, at issue in this litigation, which a local ordinance vests in the Planning Board. On June 3, 1996 the Planning Board granted Scanlon a waiver, pursuant to the Standards section for the Limited Business District, that provides that "[t]he Planning Board may waive the ... street frontage ... requirements of this article ... when the proposed use involves a structure or building that existed in 1930 ... where such structures are required to comply with the Design Review Standards...."[4] The Town Code Enforcement Officer then issued a permit, and Scanlon moved the Worster House to the Fox House lot. [¶ 5] Pursuant to 30-A M.R.S.A. § 4353(1)[5] and M.R.Civ.P. 80B, the Perkins *108 and the LaPierres filed complaints in the Superior Court. The court vacated the Town Planning Board's grant of the waiver, concluding that the Town Board of Appeals, not the Planning Board, is the sole source of authority to grant such relief from a town zoning ordinance. When the Superior Court functions as an appellate court reviewing the action of a town board, "we review the record directly to determine if the Board abused its discretion, committed an error of law, or made findings not supported by substantial evidence." LaBay v. Town of Paris, 659 A.2d 263 , 265 (Me.1995); see also Town of Union v. Strong, 681 A.2d 14 , 17 (Me.1996) ("Interpretation of provisions in a zoning ordinance is a question of law."). [¶ 6] Scanlon argues that the home rule statutory provisions in 30-A M.R.S.A. § 3001[6] grant municipalities plenary authority to enact regulations, and that the Legislature has neither expressly nor by clear implication removed the power of a town to delegate authority to its Planning Board to waive zoning requirements in narrowly defined circumstances. We disagree with Scanlon's contentions. [¶ 7] Our standard on preemption in the home rule context is clear: [T]he Legislature has conveyed a plenary grant of the state's police power to municipalities, subject only to express or implied limitations supplied by the Legislature.... Municipal legislation will be invalidated, therefore, only when the Legislature has expressly prohibited local regulation, or when the Legislature has intended to occupy the field and the municipal legislation would frustrate the purpose of state law. International Paper Co. v. Town of Jay, 665 A.2d 998 , 1001-02 (Me.1995). [¶ 8] The first section of the subchapter on Land Use Regulation, which authorizes local zoning regulation and zoning boards of appeals, is entitled "§ 4351 Home rule limitations," and provides that "[t]his subchapter provides express limitations on municipal home rule authority." Title 30-A M.R.S.A. § 4351 (West 1996 & Supp.1997). Pursuant to that subchapter, local zoning ordinances are authorized to "provide for any form of zoning consistent with this chapter...." 30-A M.R.S.A. § 4352 (1996 & Supp.1997). A municipality adopting a zoning ordinance "shall establish a board of appeals subject to this section." 30-A M.R.S.A. § 4353 (emphasis added). The board of appeals is expressly empowered to grant a variance "in strict compliance with subsection 4." Id. at § 4353(2)(C). [¶ 9] Section 4353(2)(B) does not expressly preclude other local bodies from all matters concerning a municipality's zoning ordinance. In fact, it provides for a municipality to allow its planning board to issue "special exception and conditional use permits." Id. To the extent, however, that, pursuant to Chapter I section 1505.3 of the Ogunquit Zoning Ordinance, the Planning Board's authority to grant a waiver is in reality the power to grant a variance, such authority is prohibited by clear implication. Such a scheme would permit a town to circumvent the Legislature's express and implicitly exclusive grant of variance-granting authority to boards of appeals. Exclusivity is also clearly implied in the language of 30-A M.R.S.A. § 4353(2)(B), describing the powers of planning boards: to "approve the issuance of a special exception permit or conditional use permit in strict compliance with the ordinance." Id. The Legislature had no trouble specifying the precise and limited *109 circumstances in which planning boards would be accorded limited powers. The statutory language is clear that allowing planning boards variance-granting powers would frustrate the purpose of the statute.[7] [¶ 10] Scanlon contends that the waiver is distinct from the Town's zoning provisions and therefore is not a variance.[8] He argues that the waiver is an integral part of the Design Review article that is a local legislative ordinance that applies uniformly throughout the town. Like a special exception,[9] Scanlon argues, the waiver policy allows that which would otherwise be prohibited, e.g., less than 75 feet of frontage, once there has been a legislative determination that a particular use must be granted, e.g., pre-1930's buildings that the reviewing board finds have met certain standards.[10] [¶ 11] It is true that our cases have distinguished ordinances that are "general and uniform city-wide" from those that by statutory definition necessarily divide a municipality into different zones in which different proscriptions apply. Benjamin v. Houle, 431 A.2d 48 , 49 (Me.1981) (city-wide permit procedure for gravel excavation was not "zoning" and thus not reviewable by zoning board of appeals); LaBay, 659 A.2d at 265 (Me. 1995) (building ordinance that regulates uniformly throughout municipality does not constitute zoning); see also 30-A M.R.S.A. § 4301(15-A) (1996) ("`Zoning ordinance' means a type of land use ordinance that divides a municipality into districts and that prescribes and reasonably applies different regulations in each district."). We have also sustained "blanket" ordinances under the general police power, even when "the subject could have been approached by the less restrictive alternative of a zoning ordinance...." Town of Boothbay v. National Adver. Co., 347 A.2d 419 , 423 (Me.1975). [¶ 12] None of these cases, however, supports Scanlon's position that a mechanism that offers relief from zoning requirements in the form of a uniform town-wide ordinance escapes the limitations applicable to a variance. The ordinances at issue in the cases relied on by Scanlon did not negate the restrictions imposed by the zoning scheme. The independence from the statutory zoning *110 scheme that we have accorded to non-zoning municipal prohibitions does not mean that a waiver whose direct effect is to circumvent a zoning requirement should not be deemed a variance subject to the statutory requirements. [¶ 13] The circumvention in this case is illustrated by the failure of the waiver policy to take into account the purposes of the frontage requirements of the zone. Scanlon's theory suggests that if a pre-1930's building satisfies the Design Review standards a set of essentially aesthetic considerations[11] the Planning Board has then been provided with standards to decide whether or not to waive frontage, land area, and setback requirements.[12] Yet merely meeting the aesthetic standards in no way ensures that a waiver proposal will satisfy the fundamental purposes of the zoning requirements. See Arden H. & Daren A. Rathkopf, 3 The Law of Zoning and Planning § 34.06 (4th ed.1993) (principal purpose of frontage requirement is usually access for fire and other emergency vehicles).[13] [¶ 14] Equally significant is the actual experience of Scanlon in this case. The Zoning Board of Appeals denied Scanlon a variance from the 75-foot street frontage requirement on the ground that he could not establish hardship pursuant to 30-A M.R.S.A. § 4353(4). Less than three weeks later, the Planning Board afforded him the same relief he had sought from the Board of Appeals by granting a waiver without findings of fact or articulation of a standard.[14] [¶ 15] The owner of a pre-1930's structure who is denied a variance from the Board of Appeals pursuant to undue hardship standards set out in 30-A M.R.S.A. § 4353(4) cannot seek a waiver from the Planning Board unencumbered by that statute's variance criteria. The waiver provision frustrates the purpose of the zoning statute. *111 Because 30-A M.R.S.A. § 4352 and the statutory scheme of which it is a part impliedly preempt municipal authority from granting relief equivalent to a zoning variance, the waiver provision is invalid. The entry is: Judgment affirmed.