Court Opinion

ID: 9690133
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:54:58.099367+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:53.739253
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. The issue this case presents is whether restrictions or conditions placed on land use by county zoning ordinances may be enforced against city-owned property located outside the city’s corporate boundaries. In endeavoring to answer this question, the court departs from the long-recognized and salutary principle that land use regulation through zoning is a legislative matter. As a corollary to that principle, the judicial role in zoning should be limited to applying the law which the proper legislative body has established. The opinion of the court completely rejects that approach. It makes no effort to divine the existing legislative policy applicable to these types of disputes. Instead it entrusts to judges on an ad hoc basis the task of regulating land use.
The “governmental-proprietary” and “eminent domain” tests rejected by the majority are both premised on the theory that, under the policy of the law, governmental bodies are per se exempt from zoning regulations. I agree with the court that this approach is flawed. Offensive land uses are no less offensive when undertaken by public bodies. This does not mean, however, that courts should make the choice of what proper land use should be. That is inherently a legislative determination.
The “superior sovereign” and “statutory guidance” tests discussed in the court’s opinion are not permissive formulas for deciding zoning controversies. They are juridical postulates which courts cannot ignore in deciding cases under the rule of *150law. The superior sovereign doctrine simply recognizes (as it must) that an inferior sovereign is without legislative jurisdiction to regulate the affairs of a superior sovereign. The statutory guidance doctrine simply reflects the recognition that, because zoning is a legislative issue, the beginning point in resolving zoning disputes between public bodies is a search for the legislative intent underlying the applicable statutes or ordinances.
In seeking to resolve the present dispute, I believe this court should follow the same path the trial court traversed. This requires tracing the grant of zoning power down from the state legislature to the county board of supervisors. At least one and perhaps two questions must then be answered. The first is whether the power to regulate land use entrusted to the counties by the legislature was intended to include the power to regulate city-owned property. If the answer to this question is no, then the present case must be decided in favor of the city. If the answer to the foregoing question is yes, then the court must determine whether the land use which the city seeks to employ in the present case is contrary to the applicable county zoning ordinance. The trial court answered both of these questions in the affirmative. On the record presented, I would uphold that determination.