Opinion ID: 2546361
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Sweetwater County Zoning Resolution

Text: [¶ 25] In Ford v. Board of County Com'rs of Converse County, 924 P.2d 91, 94-95 (Wyo.1996), this Court held that a county's comprehensive land use plan is merely a policy statement, while its zoning resolution has the force and effect of law. In response, the county took steps to ensure that the Plan was enforceable through its zoning resolution. Ford was published in September 1996. On December 4, 1996, the county amended the Plan to read, [t]he Growth Management Plan and Agreement shall be considered an integral part of the Sweetwater County Zoning and Subdivision Regulations. The district court relied upon this amendment in concluding that the Plan could be implemented and enforced through the zoning resolution. Beyond that effort, however, the county took additional measures. On January 8, 1997, the county amended Section 3.b.(6) of its zoning resolution to read: Within the urbanizing and city growth areas within the Growth Management Boundary as described by the Sweetwater County Growth Management Plan and Agreement and shown on Exhibit A of the Sweetwater County Growth [Management] Plan and Agreement, the commencement or establishment of any uses, development, or construction including the development of roadways that are established after the effective date of said agreement, shall meet the development and permitting standards and policies of the Growth Management Plan and Agreement and the Zoning Resolution of Sweetwater County. Where the policies and standards of said Growth Management Plan and Agreement are different than those standards of the Zoning Resolution or other official regulations of Sweetwater County, the more restrictive standards, regulations, or policies shall apply. [¶ 26] While perhaps inartfully drawn, the purpose of the amendmentthat being to make the conditional use permit process of the Plan part of the zoning resolutionis sufficiently clear so as to accomplish that end. That intent was made patently clear by the language of the accompanying statement of purpose: PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT: To support the integration of the Growth Management Plan and Agreement into the Sweetwater County Zoning Resolution. This amendment helps ensure that the Growth Management Plan is properly enforced through the Zoning Resolution. A recent Wyoming Supreme Court decision has held that rules and regulations stated in a plan can only be enforced through county zoning and subdivision regulations. [¶ 27] The landowners challenge the effectiveness of these amendments first by suggesting that they are no more than an attempt to zone through a land use plan. Second, they contend that the amendments have never taken effect because, by their own wording, they only apply to uses established after the effective date of said agreement. . . . Because the landowners believe that the Plan was not properly adopted, they further believe that it has never become effective and has no effective date for purposes of these amendments. [¶ 28] We reject all of these contentions. We have already determined that the Plan became effective as a county land use plan when it was first adopted by the county. Further, we find the county met the dictates of Ford by engrafting the Plan's enforcement toolthe conditional use permit processinto the county's zoning resolution.