Agenda - Planning Commission - 03/05/2009

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Zoning Bulletin January 25,2009 I Volume 3 I No.2 " to the Department for approval. If the Department disapproved the Proj- ect, the Planning Act allowed the District to overrule the Department by a majority vote of its governing board. The Department refused to accept the District's Application. It con- tended that the District was also required to comply with'the state's PUD Act, as well as provisions in the city land use code (the "Code")-which had been enacted by the Board of County Commissioners of the county (the "County") pursuant to the PUD Act. Specifically, the Department said that the District first needed to: (1) submit the Project to a Special Use Review; and (2) seek an amendment to the PUD pursuant to the Code. The District filed a complaint in district court, It asked the court to find that the Department had exceeded its jurisdiction and ab1.lsed its dis- cretion when it refused to accept the Application and took the position that the Project could not be completed without an amendment to the PUD. The District claimed that approval of its new fire station required only that it comply with the Planning Act. The District asked the court to declare that the Project could proceed and the Land could be purchased without amendment to the PUD. The district court ruled in the District's favor. It found that: (1) the District, as a public entity, was not subject to zoning regulations; arid (2) because a PUD was a form of zoning, the District was not subject to the PUD regulations. The court declared that the-District was not required to seek an amendment to the PUD in order to submit the Application. The County appealed. DECISION: Affirmed. The court held that the District, as a public entity, was exempt from the requirements of the PUD Act and was required to comply solely with the Planning Act. The court explained that, under the Planning Act, a county's own fa- cilities and operations were exempt from the county land use planning process. The exemption "also applied to public facilities authorized or financed by public officials or entities falling outside the province of the county, including special districts like the District here." Nowhere, em- . phasized the court, did the Planning Act indicate that it applied only in the context ohoning decisions. The County had essentially asked the court to conclude that the PUD Act superseded that exemption from the county planning process afford- ed to public entities under the Planning Act. The court refused to do so. Instead, it found that nothing in the PUD Act-which was enacted after the Planning Act-suggested that "it was intended to alter the broad ex- emption given to public entities in the Planning Act." To the contrary, the court found that the language of the PUD Act "support[ed] the no- tion that public entities [we ]re exempt." While the relevant portion of @ 2009 Thomson Reuters 9 87