Court Opinion

ID: 9607454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:58:55.249284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:39.094215
License: Public Domain

UDALL, Justice:
I concur in part and dissent in part.
I concur with that portion of the majority opinion in which it is recognized that A.R.S. § 9-474 and succeeding statutes expressly confer, upon a board of supervisors, the power to approve subdivision plats before such plats are recorded. However, I think that the present significance of this fact is concealed by the manner in which the language of the majority opinion refers to the statutes. If reference is to be made to them in this opinion I think that the reference should go further and make it clear that an expressly granted power of approval presently exists, as a result of the following described circumstances.
From 1958 to 1962 the power of approval expressly granted in A.R.S. § 9-474 was, in effect, suspended because the statute was amended so as to be applicable only if a city had an ordinance establishing minimum subdivision requirements. In 1958 the City of Phoenix did not have such an ordinance. However, the city did adopt a subdivision ordinance in August of 1962 (Ordinance No. G-477). Consequently, since 1962 and presently, under the express provisions of A.R.S. § 9-474 and § 9-475, a plat of a proposed subdivision of land within three miles of the corporate limits of the city, must be submitted for approval by Maricopa County Board of Supervisors before it is recorded.
Of course, in the case presently under consideration, the board of supervisors could not have acted under A.R.S. § 9-474 and § 9-475 because, as indicated above, the power of approval expressly granted by those statutes was effectively suspended until 1962, as a result of the 1958 amendment of A.R.S. § 9-474.
With further reference to the above mentioned statutes, and A.R.S. § 9-478, I cannot agree with the majority opinion insofar as it interprets the statutes as imposing a time limit upon the exercise of the board’s power of approval.
A.R.S. § 9-475 provides as follows:
• “A. One copy of the plat or map shall be filed with the city or town and the other copy with the board of supervisors of the county in which the subdivision is situated, to which shall be attached the petition of the owner praying for the approval of the plat or map.
“B. The board of supervisors shall set the petition for hearing not less than fifteen and not more than thirty days from the date of the filing of the plat or map and petition with the board, and shall cause written notice thereof to be given to the governing body of the city or town. The city or town may appear at the hearing and show cause why the petition should not be granted. Upon the hearing, if it appears to the board that the plat or map reasonably conforms to legal requirements it shall approve and endorse the approval upon the plat or map and transmit it to the county recorder of the county for filing
With regard to the board’s power to withhold approval for an excessively long period of time, the opinion of the majority states:
“It is evident that the legislature foresaw this possibility when it passed A.R.S. §§ 9-475 and 9-478 imposing the time limits upon the approval power established in § 9-474.”
In view of the wording of A.R.S. § 9-475, quoted above, I do not see how the majority of the Court can interpret the statute as imposing a time limit upon the exercise of the power of approval. The statute states that a hearing shall be held *454within not more than thirty days after filing of the plat and petition. It seems quite unreasonable to construe this wording as a limitation upon the ultimate power of approval, for the last sentence of § 9-474 clearly implies that the board may withhold its approval, presumably for any reasonable length of time, when it finds that the plat does not reasonably conform to legal requirements.
Inasmuch as the majority opinion also intimates that A.R.S. § 9-478 imposes a limitation upon the board’s power of approval, the precise wording of this statute should be examined also. It provides:
“No plat or map shall be accepted by the county recorder for filing, unless it complies with the provisions of this article, but if an owner has given to a city or town written notice of intention to subdivide and the city or town has failed or refused within the time specified in this article to project the lines to its streets and alleys and to supply the courses thereof, then the owner may file with the county recorder the plat or map of the subdivision in conformity with law, attaching thereto the sworn statement of the owner of the proceedings.”
I cannot see how this statute limits the approval power of a board. It specifically states that no plat shall be accepted for recording unless it complies with the provisions of the entire article. One of the provisions of the article is that the approval of the board of supervisors shall be endorsed upon the plat. Although § 9-478 precludes the necessity of city action, under the specified conditions, the statute does not suggest to me that the necessity of obtaining board approval before recording is in any way abolished or limited.
An additional issue, with regard to which I must express my disagreement with the opinion of the majority, concerns the question of whether a board of supervisors possesses implied powers.
By reference to Hart v. Bayless Investment & Trading Co., 86 Ariz. 379, 346 P.2d 1101, the majority concludes that a board of supervisors has only such powers as are expressly conferred by statute, notwithstanding the fact that in a considerable number of opinions in the past, this Court has stated that a board possesses those powers which are expressly granted and those necessarily implied therefrom, or those necessary to carry out expressly granted powers. Bone v. Bowen, 20 Ariz. 592, 185 P. 133; Board of Supervisors of Apache County v. Udall, 38 Ariz. 497, 1 P.2d 343; Maricopa County v. Southern Pacific Company, 63 Ariz. 342, 162 P.2d 619; Associated Dairy Products Co. v. Page, 68 Ariz. 393, 206 P.2d 1041; Peters v. Frye, 71 Ariz. 30, 223 P.2d 176.
Although the Hart case, supra, is the latest one dealing with the extent of a board’s power, I do not think that it either expressly or by implication overrules the statements in prior cases to the effect that a board possesses implied powers. In fact, in the Hart case, after the statement that a board has only specifically ceded powers, a presumably supporting citation is made to Board of Supervisors of Apache County v. Udall and Associated Dairy Products Co. v. Page, both supra, and in both of these cases the actual statement of the court is to the effect that a board also possesses powers necessarily implied or necessary to carry out express powers. It should also be noted that in the Hart case the question before the Court was not whether implied powers existed or could be exercised, but rather whether the board had effectively exercised an express power.
It is clear to me that a board of supervisors must necessarily possess powers other than those specifically ceded. Otherwise, the conclusion seems inevitable that at times the legislature has purportedly conferred powers by statute, but at the same time actually intended not to confer any power. The present case affords an excellent example of such a statute, A.R.S. § 11-802, quoted in the opinion of the majority. As I interpret this statute it purportedly grants very broad powers over *455matters of planning and zoning in the county. It would not he logical to expect the legislature to designate specifically each particular instance in which a hoard could assume or assert authority in carrying out its planning and zoning functions. The legislature did not attempt to do so when it enacted § 11-802, and by extending broad powers has necessarily left to implication a determination of the specific areas in and over which a board may exercise its authority. When for example, by the language of § 11-802, a board is empowered to “ * * * plan and provide for the future growth and improvement of the area under its jurisdiction, and coordinate all public improvements in accordance therewith * * * ”, the only reasonable conclusion is that a power has been conferred, and because that power is very general, it seems equally inevitable that it must he left to the process of implication to determine what is specifically included within the grant. The alternative to this conclusion is that the legislature actually did not intend to confer any power upon a board by the use of such language. If such had been the legislative intent, the result could have been more easily and certainly reached by simply not using the language, which either grants power by implication, the specific nature of which remains to be determined, or which grants no power at all, in which case there remains no reasonable explanation of why the language was used in the statute.
I think that the present case affords an excellent example of a situation in which it could reasonably be held that a board has an implied power in the area of planning and zoning. Although a board’s power to approve subdivision plats is now specifically provided for in A.R.S. § 9-474, and such power was specifically suspended from 1958 to 1962, so as to make improper the finding of an approval power by implication in those years, if the matter was not presently covered by statute, I think that it could reasonably be implied, from the broad grant of power (in A.R.S. §11-802) to plan and coordinate future developments in county areas, that a hoard could assume a power to approve subdivision plats and exercise that power in a manner calculated to resolve effectively the conflicts which may arise from time to time between the interests which clash when zoning and subdividing problems coincide, as they have in the present case.
I cannot believe, that when the legislature granted the power expressed in A.R.S. § 11-802, that it did, at the same time, intend to place a board in a position where it could effectively plan for future growth and development. Yet, the planning power is frustrated if a subdivider can plan his development according to his whim and by recording, without the approval of the board, fix his rights with no consideration having been given to the rights of other property owners in the vicinity or to those many factors which should be taken into consideration when the future growth and development of an area is being considered. If necessary, I would find that a board has, by implication, the power to approve subdivision plats before they are recorded. However, as noted previously, since the matter is specifically covered by statute, it is unnecessary to find that such a power exists presently by implication.