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3 <br />rented the building out to anindividual as asingle-family tenant, but continued to seek agroup- <br />home buyer or tenant. At some point in time, but certainly over one year following the <br />expiration of the fonner tenant's group home license, a new group home tenant was found, but <br />the City determined that the conduct of the owner was an abandonment of the former group <br />home usage. The court disagreed, holding that the fact that the property owner had continued to <br />attempt to find agroup-home tenant during the years following the vacancy, and that the rental to <br />anindividual during that time was a temporazy situation. The temporazy rental was no doubt in <br />response to the economic reality of the need for revenue. In the Niles situation, there has cleazly <br />been no conduct that supports a claim that he has abandoned his usage. <br />One interesting feature of the Haefele case is that when the property owner first found a new <br />group-home tenant, he was initially told by City staff that the grandfather rights were still intact. <br />Only after receiving concerns from neighbors did the City adopt an opposite position. The case <br />therefore also involved a claim for money damages by the property owner. The courts disallowed <br />the claim based on immunity, but there was a thorough discussion of municipal liability for <br />"discretionary" versus "ministerial acts". It is my understanding that the State vehicle licensing <br />authority does require evidence of compliance with municipal zoning codes, and that if, as a <br />result of your notification to the State that Mr. Niles is not in compliance with local zoning <br />regulations results in the loss of his State license, that will have been a ministerial act for which <br />there could be civil liability to the City. I would suggest, therefore, that the notification to the <br />State be withdrawn immediately so that Mr. Niles' State license is not at risk. <br />The final point to be made concerns what the future holds. If the City wishes to engage in either <br />civil or criminal litigation to test whether or not failure to obtain a license constitutes an <br />abandonment of the historical usage, that is certainly the City's prerogative. I would speculate <br />that as the population has expanded northward, there aze those who object to having an operation <br />like the Niles facility, which has neither the organized look of a modern car dealership or the <br />smooth building lines of Pep Boys or Midas. What you are seeing on the property is what it was <br />like to drive Highway 47 forty years ago. <br />If you drove north from Anoka in 1969, once you passed the County Fairgrounds you would <br />have seen a few single family homes. When you got north of Bunker, you would have seen the <br />old Ramsey Town Hall, which was still the seat of governrnent. From there you passed. Law's <br />Barbecue, and then a few farms until you reached the Niles property. What you would have <br />seen then is what you see now - a family operating a small business on a 20-acre lot where they <br />could also pasture a few horses. <br />In late 2004 this property was the subject of a purchase agreement to a land developer eager to <br />cash in on what was then a dynamic real estate market. Unfortunately, by the time of closing in <br />the summer of 2005, that mazket had disappeazed and. the deal fell through. In the interim, the <br />buyer had the opportunity for access to do environmental studies, soil testing and whatever other <br />due diligence they wished. To our knowledge, no adverse conditions were found. The only <br />reason that this property is not now occupied by new development is related to the economy. The <br />property has remained for sale since that time. Mr. Niles has no desire to occupy the property <br />permanently in its present form, but until the real estate market returns to some semblance of <br />