Laserfiche WebLink
constitutional safeguard and as a tool for flexibility, zoning enabling acts and local <br />ordinances should be amended to delineate these two purposes and set different standards <br />for each. The failure to make such a distinction underlies much of the past controversy <br />regarding variances. Courts and commentators have traditionally viewed the variances as <br />the former-a very limited tool for avoidance of constitutional infirmity in extraordinary <br />cases. Most variance petitions, and consequently most board of adjustment decision- <br />making, have viewed the variances as the latter-a tool to provide flexible <br />implementation rather than constitutional infirmity."). <br />We recognize that the Rowell "reasonable manner" standard represents a <br />longstanding interpretation of the undue hardship standard in Minn. Stat. § 462.357, <br />subd. 6, and that Minnesota municipalities have been granting variances under the <br />"reasonable manner" standard for many yeazs. We also recognize that our decision will <br />result in a restriction on a municipality's authority to grant variances as compared with <br />the "reasonable manner" standard. But whatever value we may find in a more flexible <br />standard, particularly with regard to azea variances, we cannot ignore the plain language <br />of the statute. See State v. Peck, 773 N.W.2d 768, 773 (Minn. 2009) ("We have no <br />opportunity to ignore part of the legislature's definition."). We are unable to interpret the <br />statutory language to mean anything other than what the text clearly says-that to obtain <br />a municipal variance, an applicant must establish that "the property,in question cannot be <br />put to a reasonable use if used under conditions allowed by the official controls." Minn. <br />Stat. § 462.357, subd. 6. Therefore, unless and until the legislature takes action to <br />provide a more flexible variance standard for municipalities, we are constrained by the <br />20 <br />