Court Opinion

ID: 9790700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:58:01.30947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:31.015122
License: Public Domain

*423Agid, J.
(dissenting) — Having finally unraveled one of the mysteries of the Seattle Land Use Code, Seattle Municipal Code (SMC) Title 23, I must respectfully dissent. I do so with some chagrin because, as one of the judges who concurred in R/L Assocs., Inc. v. City of Seattle, 61 Wn. App. 670, 811 P.2d 971, review denied, 117 Wn.2d 1024 (1991), I share responsibility for what I now believe is the error compounded by the majority’s decision in this case.
In R/L Assocs., the panel affirmed the trial court’s determination that R/L was not entitled to a writ of mandamus to compel issuance of a building permit. We did so on two grounds, one of which was R/L’s failure to exhaust administrative remedies before seeking the writ. In the first section of the opinion we held that R/L was not entitled to a writ of mandamus because it failed to show that it had a "clear right” to the permit. 61 Wn. App. at 674. Thus, the discussion of administrative remedies was dicta. While I continue to agree with all the salutary policy reasons for exhausting administrative remedies we considered there, I no longer agree that seeking an interpretation of the Director of Department of Construction and Land Use (DCLU) is an administrative "remedy” which a building permit applicant must exhaust before seeking a writ of mandamus and/or damages under RCW 64.40 for failure to grant the permit.
Smoke v. City of Seattle was initially cast in the parties’ briefs and at oral argument as a controversy over whether the master use permit (MUP) the applicant sought was a "Type I” or "Type II” decision. The majority opinion states, however, that "both parties agree that the land use decision in this case was a Type I determination.” Majority at 418. I am not sure that the postargument letter from the City Attorney in fact makes that concession, but I agree that the use permit was a Type I determination because there is no basis on which an application to establish a use can be a Type II MUP. The only kind of use permit even mentioned in SMC 23.76.006(C) (Type II permits) is "[e]stablishment or change of use for temporary uses more than three (3) weeks not otherwise permitted in *424the zone, except temporary relocation of police and fire stations for twelve (12) months or less.” (Italics mine.) SMC 23.76.006(C)(1). Therefore, the majority properly rejects the City’s initial argument that, because Smoke applied for a Type II MUP, which has a built-in appeal to the Hearing Examiner, Smoke was required to exhaust administrative remedies in this case. Not even RIL Assocs. stands for that proposition.
For purposes of our decision in this case, the critical difference between a Type I and a Type II decision is that the former is final and the latter may be appealed to the Hearing Examiner. SMC 23.76.006(B) and (C). Smoke applied for a MUP under SMC 23.76.006(B) (Type I) to establish a use "for uses permitted outright.” He also applied for a building permit. A building permit is not a master use permit at all. It is issued under the Building Code, SMC Ch. 22.10; 22.801.030, an entirely different code to which the MUP provisions do not apply. Thus, Smoke is correct in arguing that there is no administrative remedy where the decision at issue is one denying a building permit. SMC 23.76.006; 23.76.004A; 23.76.022.
However, Smoke is incorrect when he asserts that the Land Use Code and its MUP provisions did not apply to him because he sought only a building permit. A building permit can' be issued only for a use that is permitted on the property. SMC 23.40.002. Therefore, because he apparently thought it was necessary to establish the use of the property as single family residential, the use for which it was zoned, he applied for a Type I MUP. SMC 23.76.006(B). DCLU denied that MUP, for what is commonly known as a use permit. Under SMC 23.76.006(B), DCLU’s decision is final. Mill’s acknowledged as much in his April 5, 1991 letter. "This letter represents the DCLU position regarding the development potential of the property at 906-910 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. It is not an appealable legal determination.” (Italics mine.)
At this point, confusion enters. Mills goes on to direct that Smoke "may request a formal legal building site de*425termination, which is appealable to the Seattle Office of the Hearing Examiner.” And, at this point, the logic of R/L Assocs. and the majority here breaks down. Smoke applied for a Type I MUP. He lost. Nowhere does the Land Use Code provide for an appeal from that decision. Smoke did not apply under the entirely different provisions of another division of the Code for an "interpretation of the Director,” the procedure to which Mills referred in his letter. Nor does anything in the Land Use Code require him to do so.
Interpretations are governed by SMC 23.88.020, the portion of the Land Use Code governing the Director’s power to adopt rules implementing it and issue interpretations explaining it. The decision to seek an interpretation is entirely voluntary. "An interpretation may be requested in writing by any person or may be initiated by the Director.” (Italics mine.) SMC 23.88.020(A). Nothing in the Code requires or even suggests that one can, should or must seek an "interpretation” as a remedy for losing an unappealable MUP decision. The two are not even linked. And the applicant must pay yet another fee to obtain the interpretation from the same Director of the same department (DCLU) that has just denied his MUP. While an interpretation is an optional, voluntary process an applicant may choose to invoke, no provision of the Code suggests or requires that an applicant obtain one as an administrative remedy for a decision denying a Type I MUP application. As is clear from Mills’s March 1991 letter quoted above, DCLU concurs with my interpretation of the Code on this point. As the agency charged with administering the Seattle Land Use Code, DCLU’s interpretations are entitled to deference from this court. Franklin County Sheriff’s Office v. Sellers, 97 Wn.2d 317, 325, 646 P.2d 113 (1982), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1106 (1983).
In order to hold that the Legislature intended to require applicants for permits to use any conceivable remedy that may be available, even if it requires paying another fee and undertaking another process not required by the Code, *426the majority must rely on a North Carolina case, Vass v. Board of Trustees of Teachers’ & State Employees’ Comprehensive Major Medical Plan, 324 N.C. 402, 379 S.E.2d 26 (1989). Majority at 420 n.5. Apparently, there is no Washington authority which stands for the proposition the majority wishes to endorse. It goes without saying that Pass is not binding on this court, and I do not find its rationale persuasive because it relied on an available administrative appeal, not resort to an entirely different procedure which requires a new, separate application.
The result the majority reaches here seems particularly ironic in view of its recognition that the purpose of RCW 64.40 was to give "some measure of relief to applicants who are mistreated.” Majority at 418. To require applicants to go through the formal interpretation process with its attendant appeal simply adds months or years to the process during which those who have been "mistreated” must wait to receive compensation for the mistreatment. That is especially true where, as here, the same agency that made the initial admittedly wrong decision will make the decision in the formal interpretation process, and the City admitted its error as soon as Smoke filed suit in this case.
Because I have concluded that there is no administrative remedy which applies to Type I MUPs, as opposed to "any personfs]” voluntary decision to seek an interpretation of the Director under an entirely different chapter of the Land Use Code, I must dissent from the holding that Smoke failed to exhaust an administrative remedy after Mills informed him of the unappealable legal determination representing DCLU’s position on his MUP application. I agree with the remainder of the majority’s opinion, but would affirm the trial court on the ground that there was no administrative remedy to exhaust.
Review granted at 129 Wn.2d 1005 (1996).