Court Opinion

ID: 9741115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:49:39.636965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:22.361915
License: Public Domain

O’Hara, J.
(concurring). I regret the necessity of writing separately again.
I am aware of the three recent zoning opinions released by the Supreme Court,1 and the forceful opinion of Judge Quinn in Turkish v City of Warren, 61 Mich App 435; 232 NW2d 732 (1975).
I am obligated to say that I do not agree with what has been called the "Levin view” or "Levin approach”.
Unless and until a majority opinion of the Su*535preme Court adopts by opinion the following language of Mr. Justice Levin, my friend and respected colleague in the appellate judiciary:
"Even if present zoning is not unreasonable or confiscatory, a proposed use should be permitted if reasonable under all the circumstances.” (Citation omitted.) Sabo v Monroe Township, 394 Mich 531, 536-537; 232 NW2d 584 (1975),
I shall oppose it on both legal and philosophical grounds.
Zoning, in my judgment, can never by any exercise of judicial osmosis be relegated to the category of "administrative finding” reviewable on that basis by courts.
Zoning is a child of the police power. The police power is inherent in the legislative branch of government. It is enforceable by the executive branch and reviewable judicially for constitutional overbreadth. ,
If anything would turn courts into super zoning boards adoption of the so-called "Levin approach” would. This result, as I understand it, Judge Quinn and Judge Allen both disavow.
To me, the Kropf2 majority opinion merely reinstated the precedential control of Brae Burn, Inc v Bloomfield Hills, 350 Mich 425; 86 NW2d 166 (1957), which I previously had relied on in Nickola v Grand Blanc Township, 47 Mich App 684; 209 NW2d 803 (1973), affirmed 394 Mich 589; 232 NW2d 604 (1975). Kropf is the law and what I believe the law ought to be.
1 reject the notion that:
"We would require that the proofs now adduced in *536circuit court be presented administratively and restrict judicial review to whether the record evidence supports the administrative finding on the issue whether the proposed use is reasonable.” (Citation omitted.) Sabo, supra, at 537.
I cling tenaciously to the concept of Montesquieu, the intellectual father of our separation of powers doctrine, that the legislature should legislate, the executive should execute, and the judiciary should judge without invasion of the prerogatives of the other two branches.
As for the case at bar, I agree that the plaintiff failed to maintain his burden of proof under the test of Brae Burn and Kropf, supra. His case thus fails. I vote to affirm the trial judge.

 Sabo v Monroe Township, 394 Mich 531; 232 NW2d 584 (1975), Smookler v Wheatfield Township, 394 Mich 574; 232 NW2d 616 (1975), Nickola v Grand Blanc Township, 394 Mich 589; 232 NW2d 604 (1975).

 Kropf v City of Sterling Heights, 391 Mich 139; 215 NW2d 179 (1974).