Court Opinion

ID: 9850176
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:53:03.476827+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:32.801359
License: Public Domain

HANSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I would conclude that we have jurisdiction to review the issuance of the CUP by certiorari and that the CUP should be vacated because the County had no authority to issue it.

Jurisdiction

The majority opinion overly complicates the issue and, by doing so, loses sight of the precise nature of the Association’s challenge. The Association’s challenge is that the County does not have authority to issue a CUP for the effected property. This is a classic issue for review by writ of certiorari. Interstate Power Co., Inc. v. Nobles County of Comm’rs, 617 N.W.2d 566, 574 (Minn.2000) (ruling that the denial of a CUP is a quasi-judicial act that is reviewable by certiorari). The fact that the underlying basis for the Association’s claim of lack of authority is that the County has not completed the zoning process that is a prerequisite to the issuance of a CUP is not a challenge to the legislative policy choices the County might make in the process of zoning. To the contrary, *136the Association complains because the County has not made those legislative policy choices.
The challenge thus does not require review of legislative policy issues, which might raise separation-of-powers concerns, but only review of the statutes and regulations that confer authority to issue CUPs for development of shorelands of public waters. That challenge involves the interpretation of statutes and regulations, a task for which this court is particularly well suited and for which no deference need be given to the County.11
It is conceivable that a challenge to the issuance of a -CUP may, by its nature, be only a disguised challenge to the legislative zoning decisions made by the governmental body. But that is not the nature of the Association’s challenge here because it focuses on the statutory authority for a county to issue a CUP for shoreland development. To the extent that zoning is part of the background, it is clearly ancillary to our jurisdiction to review by certiorari the quasi-judicial act of issuing a CUP.
Further; while I agree with the first part of the majority’s observation, that “[djisposition of this case on the merits would involve resolution of the question of whether the County may use the CUP process to develop lake property parcel by parcel,” I do not agree' with the second part, that disposition would require resolution of “whether the County must engage in a zoning process that provides notice to the public as to how a particular parcel of land will be developed.” The Association seeks to vacate the CUP based upon a negative answer to the first question. But the Association does not ask us to compel the County to engage in zoning.12 To the contrary, if the Association is correct that the County cannot issue a CUP until it has completed zoning, the Association would likely be pleased if the County does not engage in zoning.
The points to emphasize on jurisdiction are that the Association challenges the authority of the County to issue a CUP; the challenge is based on the statute and the regulations on shoreland development; the remedy requested is that the CUP be vacated; and the only “record” necessary for the review of the challenge is the CUP, the ordinance, the regulations and the statute. No testimony need or should be taken and no findings are required, or even appropriate. In fact, the district court would do exactly what we would do — review the CUP in light of the Ordinance, the regulations and the statute. We would then review the .district court’s conclusions de novo.
Because I do not see the need to examine any legislative actions of the County, or the- need to develop a record before the district court, I would conclude that we have jurisdiction.

Validity

Having concluded that we have jurisdiction on certiorari to .review the issuance of the CUP, I would further conclude that the issuance was unlawful because the County is not authorized by law to issue a CUP for shoreland of public waters until it first establishes land use zoning districts for which cluster developments are conditional uses. The court of appeals’ decision to the contrary is based on a fundamentally false premise that “[ujnder both the *137rules and the [ordinance], cluster developments are conditional uses on natural environmental lakes.” Dead Lake Ass’n, 2004 WL 422570, at *2. Under the regulations, cluster development is a conditional use of some but not all land use districts that are authorized for a natural environmental lake.
In other words, the County complied with only the first step of the shoreland development regulations when it classified the public waters of Dead Lake as a “natural environmental lake.” Minn. R. 6120.3000, subp. 1(a) (2003). Under the regulations, the development of shorelands cannot be based merely on the classification of the public waters, but instead “must be controlled by means of the land use zoning districts which are designated to be compatible with the classes of public waters.” Minn. R. 6120.3100 (2003). The regulations then authorize five types of land use districts: (1) special protection districts; (2) residential districts; (3) high density residential districts; (4) water-oriented commercial districts; and (5) general use districts. Minn. R. 6120.3200, subp. 3 (2003). And, critical to the analysis here, residential planned use developments are permitted as a conditional use in “high density residential districts” and commercial planned unit developments are permitted as a conditional use in “water-oriented commercial districts” or “general use districts,” but there is no authorization for planned unit development as a conditional use for either “special protection districts” or “residential districts.” Id., at subp. 4. Because the County’s Shoreland Management Ordinance does not establish these districts, it likewise does not satisfy the prerequisites to its authority to issue a CUP.
Further, the attempt of the County to bypass the requirement to establish land use districts by classifying the entire shoreland around Dead Lake as a “district that surrounds a natural environmental lake,” and to list cluster development as a conditional use for that entire “district,” does not comply with the regulations. If permitted to stand, that mechanism would defeat the purposes for the statutes relating to shoreland developments, to “provide guidance for the wise development of shorelands of public waters,” “preserve the economic and natural environmental values of shorelands,” and “provide for the wise use of water and related land resources of the state.” Minn.Stat. § 103F.201 (2004). The state regulations do not identify a “district that surrounds a natural environmental lake” as an authorized land use district. The obvious purpose of the regulations, in requiring the County to use one or more of the five authorized land use districts, is to require consideration of the criteria that differentiate one district from another. See Minn. R. 6120.3800, subp. 2 (2003). This purpose is reinforced by the fact that certain uses, including cluster development, are only permitted in some districts and not others.
The mechanism that the County created to bypass the requirements of the state regulations would, if upheld, enable the County to decide the use of the entire shoreland of Dead Lake by the ad hoc CUP process, without any comprehensive plan. The County’s protest that it would not do so does nothing to fill the void in its authority to issue a CUP for cluster development before establishing a land use district for which a cluster development is a conditional use.
I would reverse the court of appeals and vacate the CUP.
ANDERSON, PAUL H., Justice.
I join in the dissent of Justice Hanson.

. To the conclusion stated in the majority and concurring opinions that the County's zoning decision was a legislative one, I can only ask: What legislative authority doe.s a county have to disregard, much less disobey, state law? I think it has none.

. We would not consider any request to compel the County to engage in zoning because that is the County’s legislative prerogative. But, although the County cannot be compelled to zone, it can be required to face the legal consequence of not zoning.