Court Opinion

ID: 9747818
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:37:17.790629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:27.470253
License: Public Domain

Barney, J.
In March, 1965, the plaintiff company sought to erect billboards in the town of Shaftsbury. The Secretary of State, as 9 V.S.A. §3628 then required, refused to issue the necessary permits, because the proposed signs were in conflict with a billboard zoning ordinance of the town of Shaftsbury, on file in his office. (Effective in July, 1965, the prohibition was transferred to 9 V.S.A. §3626, which was amended to require written permission from the appropriate local official as a prerequisite to the granting of a permit.) The company sought relief from this prohibition by bringing this declaratory judgment proceeding to challenge the existence and validity of the ordinance. The lower court heard the matter on an agreed statement of facts, and dismissed the petition. The plaintiff brought the matter here.
In March, 1951, Shaftsbury adopted an ordinance regulating outdoor advertising. The regularity of its adoption is not questioned in this action, which necessarily includes the requisite preliminary hearing, posting, publication and adoption at town meeting of the pro*265posed ordinance as provided in 24 V.S.A. §3003 and 3011. In accordance with law, a certified copy was duly and timely filed in the Secretary of State’s office. In 1952, the selectmen, as they are empowered to do, adopted an amendment to this ordinance and properly filed a copy of the amendment with the Secretary of State.
In 1953, the following article appeared on the warning for the annual meeting.
To vote by ballot on the following: Will the Town repeal the ordinance regulating outdoor advertising structures which was voted at the 1951 town meeting?
The vote was heavily in the affirmative. The result of the vote was also certified to the Secretary of State. No public hearings were held in connection with this article, either before or after the town meeting. At no time has the board of selectmen taken any action in their legislative capacity to repeal the billboard ordinance. In 1961, and again in 1964; the board adopted amendments to this ordinance and filed them with the Secretary of State. On this state of facts the Secretary of State refused the billboard permits.
The plaintiff raises two issues. First, it contends that the Shafts-bury ordinance has been repealed by,popular vote. Second, it claims that the ordinance, even if still in force, is invalid because it is not comprehensive, since it regulates only outdoor advertising in the town.
A procedure for repeal of a zoning ordinance by a town is now set out in 24 V.S.A. §3027, requiring a favorable vote of two-thirds of the qualified voters present at a duly warned town meeting. It was not part of the law in 1953. In this case we are not engaged in a search for the appropriate or best procedure for repeal in 1953, our concern is only whether the action of the town meeting was sufficient then to repeal the ordinance. The answer to this question can be found by determining whether, under the statutes then in force, authorization to accomplish repeal, by that means alone, had been assigned to the townspeople in town meeting.
The plaintiff analogizes the power of a town meeting to a right of initiative or referendum. Local governments in this state have no such inherent or constitutionally-granted authority. The power to zone is a grant from the legislature. The municipality, there*266fore, has zoning authority only in accordance with, and subject to, the terms and conditions imposed by the state in making the power grant. Thompson v. Smith, 119 Vt. 488, 498, 129 A.2d 638. The townspeople have no independent power to exercise any authority in connection with the granted power not encompassed by the legislative enactments.
The statutes involved do not give the voters any direct power to zone, or to repeal zoning. The legislative grant was restricted. It permitted the voters to grant or withhold from the legislative body of the town, in this case the selectmen, the authority to make zoning regulations. 24 V.S.A. §3002, Thompson v. Smith, supra, 119 Vt. 488, 500. If granted, the voters, in town meeting, had the further right to approve or disapprove the proposed original zoning ordinance. 24 V.S.A. §3003. Once that ordinance took effect, the selectmen had the power to amend, alter or add to the ordinance without the approval of the voters, although they were allowed to solicit any advisory, vote, if they chose. 24 V.S.A. §3004.
Both the original ordinance and all later changes had to be brought to public hearing, with notice to parties in interest and local citizens, before the ordinance or change could become effective. 24 V.S.A. §3011. The only statute then in effect which mentions “repeal” was 24 V.S.A. §3012. It required a two-thirds vote of the selectmen to amend, repeal or alter zoning regulations, restrictions, or the boundaries of zoning districts, if protests from affected and adjacent landowners reached a certain level.
From this statutory pattern a policy clearly emerges to require participation, at least, of the legislative body of the municipality in any alteration or repeal of zoning regulations, as the law stood in 1953. Preliminary public hearings were also a prerequisite. They are lacking in this case.
Nor can it be argued that any inherent power to repeal necessarily resides in the town, merely because it enacted zoning. In other areas the legislature has delegated the power to municipal voters to embrace a governing plan, without giving any authority to disengage. For example, this was true of entrance to the village form of government, up to the passage of No. 184 of the Acts of 1965. Until that time, the legislature kept to itself the power to determine, in individual cases, the manner by which villages might give up this, form of government.
*267The action of the voters of Shaftsbury at town meeting in 1953 was not effective to repeal the existing zoning ordinance. The Secretary of State and the lower court were correct in treating the ordinance as presently in force.
In 24 V.S.A. §3009, the legislature has said, “Such regulations shall be made in accordance with a comprehensive plan . . . .” Since the Shaftsbury ordinance deals only with billboards, the plaintiff argues that it is fatally lacking in comprehensiveness. It points to the provisions of 24 V.S.A. §3002, which then, and now, authorized the regulation of, “the size of buildings and other structures, the percentage of lot that may be occupied, the size of yards, courts and other open spaces, the density of population, and the location and use of buildings, structures and land for trade, industry, residence or other purposes.” The contention is that a comprehensive ordinance must deal with these areas, and, if it confines itself to one type of structure, it is discriminatory.
Statutes are entitled to reasonable construction. Herbert v. Layman and Braun, 125 Vt. 481, 486, 218 A.2d 706. This zoning statute is intended to reach communities ranging in size and complexity from larger than Bennington to smaller than Brunswick. The meaning assigned to “comprehensive” must not produce ridiculous results at either extreme. In same small towns building size, lot size, population density, trade or business use or location, or some of these, may require no attention now, or in the foreseeable future. Yet, in many of these small communities, billboards may represent the only significant threat to “conserving the value of property and encouraging the most appropriate use of land throughout the municipality” in accordance with 24 V.S.A. §3009. The position of the plaintiff, if it requires any municipality seeking to regulate against threatening conditions, to enact unnecessary and unsupportable regulations in other areas, is unacceptable.
Unquestionably, a discriminatory ordinance would be invalid, on due process grounds, if no other. But the fact that the zoning regulation in this case is restricted to billboard structures does not, per se, make it discriminatory. Outdoor advertising is one of those activities of sufficient separate public concern to be the subject of special legislation and regulation. Kelbro, Inc. v. Myrick, 113 Vt. *26864, 70, 30 A.2d 527. The very licensing requirements generating this action are evidence of this. 9 V.S.A. §3621-3687. Discrimination, in this case, must amount to an unfair or prejudicial exercise of the right to regulate outdoor advertising structures, devices and displays, specifically and specially referred to in 24 V.S.Á.- §3001.
The word “comprehensive” became 'part of our statutory law when the original zoning enabling act was adopted as No. 55 of the Acts of 1931. That act copied verbatim most of the language of the Standard State Zoning Act of the Department of Commerce. See Rathkopf, Zoning and Planning, 547-51 (2nd ed. 1949). The only significant textual adjustments were made to accommodate the operational aspects to our town government requirements. Many other states adopted the same standard enabling act.
The meaning ascribed to “comprehensive” by the original authors of this enabling act was undoubtedly different from the intention and understanding attached thereto by the enacting legislatures. We have already pointed out the unreasonableness of requiring full-scale zoning in some of our rural communities. The legislature must have been aware of this. However desirable in theory the coupling of zoning to a master plan may be, certainly it must be said to have been obvious to the legislature that master plans for some of our towns would be, for a long time to come, economically wasteful and physically unnecessary. Yet, certainly, such towns should not be required to forego so much of zoning as might be appropriate to their situation. Thus, the aim of the theorist, with his primary concern with urban conditions, cannot be taken as the aim of a legislature dealing with a predominately rural state.
Because of this second-hand derivation, this word “comprehensive” has given many courts trouble. See Haar, “In Accordance with a Comprehensive Plan,” 68 Harv. L. Rev. 1134, 1157 (1955). As that article indicates, courts have been reluctant to find an invalidating test in lack of “comprehensiveness” unless other invidious characteristics, such as arbitrariness, capriciousness or discrimination could be found to be present. Unquestionably, the term is directed against, among other things, improper and unfair spot zoning practices, and directed toward proper consideration of the probable long-term developments and objectives with respect to overall land use in the community.
*269A municipality cannot dispense with concern for the health, safety or general welfare of the community, or avoid a consideration of the issue of overall land use in the area, in deciding the appropriate and suitable forms thát its own zoning regulations ought to také. As a strict test of statutory validity, however, we also find that it does not become prohibitive until the failure to pursue the statutory objectives does amount to an unreasonable, arbitrary, capricious or discriminatory exercise of the power to zone. We do not find that the fact that the Shaftsbury ordinance was limited to the regulation of outdoor advertising structures subjects it to this condemnation.
Unquestionably, if the trial court felt dismissal was the required result in this case, it would have been better to have said why. See Grow v. Wolcott, 123 Vt. 490, 496, 194 A.2d 403. Otherwise, the parties were entitled to a declaration of the rights called into question, in accordance with the purposes of declaratory judgment actions. However, with the essential ingredients for a decision on the law already before us, in order to avoid useless protraction of the litigation to no different result, we make final disposition here.

Judgment affirmed.