Opinion ID: 2285907
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Is the Act unconstitutionally vague and impossible of compliance?

Text: The Appellant also argues that its land is being taken from it impermissibly because the criteria which the Act requires the landowner to meet is unconstitutionally vague and impossible of compliance. Section 484 requires the Commission to approve a development proposal whenever it finds that: 1. Financial capacity. The proposed development has the financial capacity and technical ability to meet state air and water pollution control standards, has made adequate provision for solid waste disposal, the control of offensive odors, and the securing and maintenance of sufficient and healthful water supplies. 2. Traffic movement. The proposed development has made adequate provision for loading, parking and traffic movement from the development area onto public roads. 3. No adverse affect on natural environment. The proposed development has made adequate provision for fitting itself harmoniously into the existing natural environment and will not adversely affect existing uses, scenic character, natural resources or property values in the municipality or in adjoining municipalities. 4. Soil types. The proposed development will be built on soil types which are suitable to the nature of the undertaking. Lakesites protests that as it is only a subdivider it cannot accurately foresee the activity to be performed on the lots it sells and so cannot control the future adequacy of provisions relating to pollution control and maintenance of healthful water supplies. To be sure, the Act imposes upon the developerincluding the mere subdividerresponsibilities which he has not had in the past. The Legislature has determined that an owner of a large tract of undeveloped land may no longer subdivide it, sell the lots and then walk away from the transaction indifferent to the local catastrophe that may result when construction and occupancy reveal the incapacity of the environment to withstand the impact of the development. It may be that this responsibility can more easily be met by a subdivider who is also a constructor of the buildings but it is equally the responsibility of the subdivider who chooses only to sell the bare lots. The duty is no doubt more burdensome as the land is less suitable and it may be impossible of compliance if the environment is of a type incapable of sustaining the proposed development. In the latter situation the public welfare demands that the land be used for another purpose or that the impact of the same use be diminished. In many situations the subdivider may be able to meet his burden of affirmatively demonstrating to the Commission that he has met the criteria through satisfactory conditions in his instruments of sale. We do not consider the burden to be unreasonable in view of the overriding public interest. The New Hampshire Court expressed the same basic philosophy when it found that an ordinance which required approval of subdivision developments conditioned upon the developer's paying for street gradings and surfacing, curbings, side-walks, water mains, sewers and other improvements did not impose an unreasonable burden upon a residential developer or amount to a taking of his land. The Court adopted the language of 2 Rathkopf, The Law of Zoning and Planning, ch. 71, § 9 (1960): `Since the subdivision of a large tract of land into a number of small building lots and the development thereof, either for residential or industrial purposes increases the value of the land in the aggregate to the subdivider and at the same time imposes new burdens upon the municipality and, if uncontrolled, upon other elements in the community, the validity of imposing a duty upon the subdivider to comply with reasonable conditions relating to location, site plan, location of and width of roads and side-walks, the installation of necessary storm drains and sewers, and to restrictions on lot sizes so that the subdivision will conform to the local requirements for the safety, health and general welfare of the subsequent owners of the individual lots therein and of the community has been generally recognized.' Blevens v. City of Manchester, 103 N.H. 284, 170 A.2d 121, 122 (1961). The Court added: The subdivision of land has a definite economic impact upon the municipality and hence the regulation of subdivision activities has been sustained as a means by which the interests of the public and the general taxpayer may be safeguarded and protected. Since the subdivider of land creates the need for local improvements which are of special benefit to the subdivision, it is considered reasonable that he should bear the cost rather than the municipality and the general taxpayer. . . . The Appellant concedes that the requirement that a proposed development must not be built on soil types which are unsuitable to the nature of the undertaking is a reasonable one, and we agree. We also feel that there can be no serious question but that the Legislature may properly demand that adequate provision will be made for loading, parking and traffic movement and has done so clearly. The requirement that the Commission must be satisfied that there will be no adverse effect upon the natural environment is the very substance of the Legislature's efforts to reduce despoilation of the environment to a minimum. While most such developments may be expected to affect the environment adversely to the extent that they add to the demands already made upon it, it is the unreasonable effect upon existing uses, scenic character and natural resources which the Legislature seeks to avoid by empowering the Commission to measure the nature and extent of the proposed use against the environment's capacity to tolerate the use. Of course, the Legislature may not endow the Commission with a naked discretion and it has here established criteria to guide the Commission's exercise of its power. While the Legislature has used general language in requiring proof that the proposed development has adequate provision for fitting itself harmoniously into the existing natural environment, the Legislature has throughout the Act pointed out the specific respects in which the development must not offend the public interest and in which the development would be ecologically inharmonious. The Act recognizes the public interest in the preservation of the environment because of its relationship to the quality of human life, and in insisting that the public's existing uses of the environment and its enjoyment of the scenic values and natural resources receive consideration, the Legislature used terms capable of being understood in the context of the entire bill. The Legislature has declared the public interest in preserving the environment from anything more than minimal destruction to be superior to the owner's rights in the use of his land and has given the Commission adequate standards under which to carry out the legislative purpose. For reasons not known to us the Act recites that property values also must not be (unreasonably) affected. In our opinion, the effect of developments upon property values is outside the scope and purposes of the Act and the Commission would be impermissibly applying the force of the State's police power in the enforcement of this Act if it denied approval of a development because of failure of proof that property values would not be adversely affected. We consider the addition of this dubious criterion constitutionally barred and void. There appears no reason to believe that the Legislature, with its purpose of ecological protection appearing so clearly, would have felt that the provision as to property values was indispensable to the effectiveness of the Act. We consider the section to be severable and that the validity of the remainder of the Act is unaffected. [12] The invalidity of this portion of the criteria has no effect upon the Commission's refusal to approve of the development. The Commission's findings make clear that the effect of Lakesites' development upon property values in Raymond, if any, did not influence the Commission's decision. We have frequently held that the standards which a statute sets out to guide the determinations of administrative bodies must be sufficiently distinct so that the public may know what conduct is barred and so that the law will be administered according to the legislative will. The standards here are much more explicit than those which we found to be insufficient in Waterville Hotel Corp. v. Board of Zoning Appeals, Me., 241 A.2d 50 (1968) and those of which we approved in State v. Johnson, Me., 265 A.2d 711 (1970). We find that the standards which the Act imposes upon the commission and the applicants are clear, explicit, rationally related to the purposes of the Act and are adequate guides for the conduct of both the Commission and the applicants.