Opinion ID: 1306492
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: building permit issued in violation of code and zoning ordinances

Text: The plaintiffs first contend the trial court erred in holding the defendant has a vested right to develop the property in accordance with the zoning ordinances in effect on January 3, 1969, the date of permit application. We agree. [1] Our ruling in Hull v. Hunt, 53 Wn.2d 125, 331 P.2d 856 (1958) sets forth this jurisdiction's rule as to when rights vest with an applicant for a building permit. We there expressly rejected, at page 129, the majority rule which states: any substantial change of position, expenditures or incurrence of obligations under a permit entitles the permittee to complete the construction and use the premises for the purpose authorized irrespective of subsequent zoning or changes in zoning.... 8 McQuillin on Municipal Corporations (3d ed. 1949), § 25.157 at 360. Illustrative of jurisdictions which adopt this rule is Virginia, where in Board of Supervisors v. Medical Structures, Inc., 213 Va. 355, 192 S.E.2d 799 (1972), the court held, at page 358: where, as here, a special use permit has been granted under a zoning classification, a bona fide site plan has thereafter been filed and diligently pursued, and substantial expense has been incurred in good faith before a change in zoning, the permittee then has a vested right to the land use described in the use permit and he cannot be deprived of such use by subsequent legislation. We rejected that approach at page 130 of Hull, where we noted: We prefer not to adopt a rule which forces the court to search through (to quote from State ex rel. Ogden v. Bellevue, supra [45 Wn.2d 492, 275 P.2d 899 (1954)]) the moves and countermoves of ... parties... by way of passing ordinances and bringing actions for injunctions  to which may be added the stalling or acceleration of administrative action in the issuance of permits  to find that date upon which the substantial change of position is made which finally vests the right. The rule we adopted is concise and provides for easy application. It is: [T]he right vests when the party ... applies for his building permit, if that permit is thereafter issued. This rule, of course, assumes that the permit applied for and granted be consistent with the zoning ordinances and building codes in force at the time of application for the permit. Therefore, no rights may vest where either the application submitted or the permit issued fails to conform to the zoning or building regulations. The Seattle building code sets forth specific and extensive requirements for the orderly and equitable issuance of building permits. 3.03.020. The provisions therein, provide in part, that (a) to obtain a permit an application must be filed and accompanied by drawings and specifications; (b) each application is to have two sets of drawings and specifications; (c) the application and materials filed shall be checked by the Superintendent of Buildings; (d) If the Superintendent of Buildings is satisfied that the application and materials conform to the law and a building permit fee has been paid he shall issue a permit therefor to the applicant; and (e) when a permit has been issued the drawings and specifications are to be marked APPROVED. [2] The record indicates, and the trial court found, that the building permit of May 8, 1969 was issued contrary to these provisions in that the permit grant was made prior to any check of the drawings or specifications. In fact, the grant made was explicitly a conditional permit, which is not authorized by the code. We have held that: The acts of administering a zoning ordinance do not go back to the questions of policy and discretion which were settled at the time of the adoption of the ordinance. Administrative authorities are properly concerned with questions of compliance with the ordinance, not with its wisdom. (Italics ours.) State ex rel. Ogden v. Bellevue, 45 Wn.2d 492, 495, 275 P.2d 899 (1954). This rule is of equal force in the administration of a building code. To permit another course of administrative behavior, thereby inviting discretion, may well result in violations of the equal protection of the laws. The code is positive in its requirements and contains no exceptional procedures like those employed here; hence, no city officer was authorized to permit its violation. The duty of those empowered to enforce the codes and ordinances of the city is to insure compliance therewith and not to devise anonymous procedures available to the citizenry in an arbitrary and uncertain fashion. This permit grant violation alone frustrates the vesting of defendant's rights, but there were also apparent inconsistencies regarding the applications to which no trial court findings were made. The code requires each application to have drawings and specifications submitted at the same time, yet here the reintroduced application was not accompanied by any new materials. It might be argued that the 2-year-old drawings and specifications from the 1967 application can be deemed to satisfy this code requirement as they remained on file, but this raises the code provision pertaining to retention of drawings which provides: Drawings submitted for checking, for which no permit is issued, and on which no action is taken by the applicant for six months, shall be destroyed . .. to renew action on said drawings, new drawings and a payment of a new drawing check fee shall be required. The record is clear that no permit was issued on the 1967 application and drawings; however, the record is unclear whether the applicant was idle for any 6-month period between the June 1967 application and the reintroduced January 1969 application. If no action was undertaken by the applicant, it was incumbent upon the building department to destroy the drawings and require new fee, application, and materials in order to renew a permit request. Since the permit grant itself was patently impermissible, we need not decide if the application was also defective. [3] The trial court deemed this unlawful permit was immaterial because it was cured by subsequent compliance. We decline to accept this validation of an otherwise invalid permit because there is no such curing device in the Seattle building code. Moreover, we must speculate as to what was the subsequent compliance, presumably the October 22, 1970 removal of the permit's condition. To the contrary, where a building permit is found to be invalid it is void and confers no rights. Nolan v. Blackwell, 123 Wash. 504, 212 P. 1048 (1923); Hull v. Hunt, 53 Wn.2d 125, 331 P.2d 856 (1958); Steele v. Queen City Broadcasting Co., 54 Wn.2d 402, 341 P.2d 499 (1959). In both Nolan and Steele a primary deficiency in the permit was caused by errors on the part of the property owners, yet the officers and agents of the city were also causes for the unlawfulness of the permit issuance. In Nolan, the permit was issued under an error of fact by the officials. Regardless of the source of the invalidity, be it solely the wrongdoing of the applicant, the administrator, or both, the evil is identical; namely, the disregard of legislation established to further a social good. In Steele, the court found the city had no authority to issue the permit or keep it alive by granting extensions. To ignore these mandatory code requirements is not only improper under the reasoning of Nolan and Steele, but would also seriously undermine, if not demolish, the protections of the rule established in Hull v. Hunt, supra . In the pursuit of certainty in the date of vesting of rights, we recognized our rule in Hull might invite speculation in building permits, but felt two factors diminished this possibility. First, a 180-day time limitation existed under the Seattle code within which construction must commence or a permit would become null and void. Second, the cost of preparing plans and meeting the requirements of building codes is such that good faith application can be assumed. The first factor is no longer the law in the Seattle code and so we must rely solely upon the burdens of meeting the pertinent building code requirements as the device for insuring the proper exercise of the Hull rule. Ignoring the violations here removes the code's burdens, inviting speculation. [4] The defendant urges us to look away from these code violations and provide equitable relief but fails to cite any legal or equitable principles to support the claim. This arbitrary approach must be avoided and we should not excuse the application of established codes and ordinances. Equitable relief is usually only appropriate where there are two private parties in dispute within a contractual or propertied relationship. [4] This is not the case here. Finch v. Matthews, 74 Wn.2d 161, 443 P.2d 833 (1968). We cannot find that a litigant has any right to be a beneficiary of unlawful administrative conduct where the public's interest will suffer, by the mere assertion that extensive financial investment is in the balance. Defendant started the project with full awareness that there were multiple, serious legal obstacles and cannot now claim relief simply because money was expended in the face of an awareness it might not have a legal right to proceed. We have not been persuaded in the past that because a financial investment is in jeopardy, the public interest should suffer. Wilbour v. Gallagher, 77 Wn.2d 306, 462 P.2d 232, 40 A.L.R.3d 760 (1969) and Bach v. Sarich, 74 Wn.2d 575, 445 P.2d 648 (1968). In Bach, at page 581, we recognized that [f]rom the very commencement of defendants' construction they were aware of the protests of other riparian owners. The encroaching structure did not exist at the time of suit, but was built during the pendency of this suit. In that case we refused to consider equitable relief premised upon the money expended during litigation. Litigation here commenced with the filing of complaints on September 20, 1971, yet the developers assert on appeal that construction continues. Factually, in the instant case we are faced, at the time litigation commenced, with construction no further advanced than the fill, concrete slab and pilings in Bach. The issue of whether defendant can comply with the now existing laws is not before us, nor is the question of what is to be done with the existing construction. Equity came to fulfil the law, not to destroy it and we fail to see how the legal principles here at issue are fulfilled by excusing their application. L. Curzon, Equity 6 (1967). Another reason exists to reject the theory that the May 1969 permit is unlawful, yet made valid by the October 1970 approval. If the 1969 permit is invalid, what is to be made of the permit renewals of April 1970, April 1971 and October 1971? It is nonsensical to argue that one can have a valid renewal of an invalid permit and the subsequent renewals of that invalid permit are also improper. If the October 1970 approval, by removing the condition on the permit is deemed an independent and lawful permission to construct, there still have been no renewals triggered by that approval and based on that date because no one looked at that action as establishing a valid, lawful permit as of that date. No consistent argument can be made for the vesting of rights on an invalid permit allegedly cured by a subsequent event under a code which does not allow for any such curing.