Opinion ID: 2800054
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Expedited Review

Text: The Act provides that district courts shall hear and decide actions challenging a local government's denial of permission to construct a cellular tower on an expedited basis. Id. § 332(c)(7)(B)(v). Smith argues largely that the district court failed to provide expedited review because the court should have simply order[ed] the issuance of a permit upon concluding that Washington County had failed to provide an adequate written explanation for its denial. Smith's argument fails, however, because Washington County did provide a legally adequate explanation for its denial when it referred Smith to the meeting minutes. Indeed, as the Supreme Court recently held, a locality may rely on detailed meeting minutes to provide its written reasons for denial, so long as the locality's reasons are stated clearly enough to enable judicial review. T-Mobile S., LLC v. City of Roswell, Ga., 135 S. Ct. 808, 816 (2015) (emphasis added).2 In this case, the meeting minutes are sufficiently clear to enable judicial review. Id. The June 4, 2013 meeting minutes alone contain thirty pages of detailed notes from the participants' presentations and discussions about the tower. Washington County did not violate the Act by relying on these meeting minutes to provide the written reasons for its denial. We do note, however, that at the time the Quorum Court denied Smith's application, only the minutes from the June 4, 2013 meeting had been made available. The minutes from the June 24, 2013 meeting were not made available until July 22, 2 The Supreme Court issued the Roswell decision after the district court issued its decision in this case. Prior to Roswell, the case law was unclear as to whether a locality could rely on meeting minutes to constitute a written explanation for a denial under the Act. -6- 2013. The Supreme Court has made clear that, as a general matter, a locality must provide or make available its written reasons at essentially the same time as it communicates its denial. Id. Thus, because Washington County did not make the June 24, 2013 minutes available until 24 days after it notified Smith in writing of its denial, it failed to provide the minutes within the requisite time frame. See id. at 818 (holding that a city failed to provide its written reasons essentially contemporaneously with its written denial because it issued the minutes at issue 26 days after the date of the written denial). Washington County's failure to make the June 24, 2013 meeting minutes available earlier, however, did not require the district court to grant Smith immediate relief by ordering the issuance of a CUP. Washington County's reference to the June 4, 2013 meeting minutes—which, again, were already available at the time of the written denial—informed Smith of the reasons for the Quorum Court's denial. The June 4, 2013 minutes reflect extensive discussion of the requirements of Zoning Code § 11–200(a), safety issues, the tower's proximity to nearby residences, the tower's detrimental impact on residents' views and property values, and the tower's fit with the surrounding area. Not surprisingly, these same concerns were again discussed during the June 24, 2013 meeting, which representatives of Smith also attended. The residents and Quorum Court reiterated the same concerns which underlay their appeal of the Planning Board's initial approval of Smith's CUP application months before the June 2013 Quorum Court meetings. Put simply, in light of these facts and the record before us, Smith received adequate notice of the reasons for the Quorum Court's denial. Furthermore, assuming arguendo that Washington County's failure to promptly make the latter meeting minutes available somehow violated the Act, the violation was, at most, a harmless error. See id. at 818–19 (noting that a locality's failure to make meeting minutes available fewer than 26 days after the written denial may constitute harmless error); see also id. at 819 (Alito, J., concurring) (I have trouble believing that [the party -7- seeking to build a cellular tower,] which actively participated in the decisionmaking process . . . was prejudiced by the . . . delay in providing a copy of the minutes.).3