Agenda - Planning Commission - 05/05/2011

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Zoning Bulletin March 10, 2011 I Volume 5 I No. 5 tionally, no separate findings of fact, conclusions of law, or final order were entered. Gold filed in court a Petition for Review. He challenged the Board's denial of his subdivision and final plat application. Among other things, he argued that the Board's decision was: "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not in conformity with law." The Board conceded that the agency record was inadequate and that remand was necessary to make a complete record. The district court reversed the Board's decision to deny Gold's subdi- vision permit. The court remanded the matter to the Board for an "ap- propriate hearing." The Board appealed, asking the appellate court to determine whether the hearing it must provide on remand had to be: a contested case hear- ing (i.e., trial -type hearing) or a public hearing. DECISION: Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. The Supreme Court of Wyoming held that the Board needed only to hold a public hearing on whether to grant Gold's subdivision permit; Gold was not entitled to a contested case hearing before the Board. The court explained that, in determining whether or not a subdivision applicant (such as Gold) is entitled to a contested case hearing, the court first needs to determine whether there is any law that requires a trial - type hearing. The court found that no law required such a hearing. Wyo- ming statutory law governing real estate subdivisions (Wyo. Stat. Ann. §§ 18-5-301 et seq.) did not require a board of county commissioners or a county planning commission to provide a contested case hearing to an applicant for a subdivision permit. The rules and regulations adopted by the PZC in this case also did not require contested case hearings for sub- division and plat applications. They required only that the PZC receive "public comment" on the preliminary plat and the final plat. Having found that "neither the statutes nor the administrative rules provide[d] for a contested case hearing," the court further explained that a contested case hearing to deny or approve a subdivision permit would be required "only if the applicant has a property right in that subdivision plan that is protected by constitutional due process." In other words, since the statutes and rules did not require a contested case hearing, Gold would only get such a hearing if it had a vested property right in its subdivision plan. A vested property right, said the court, required "more than an abstract need or desire for it ... [and] more than a unilateral ex- pectation of it"; it required a "legitimate claim of entitlement to it." The court found "no authority that suggests a property owner has a vested right in a contemplated development or subdivision." Thus, concluded the court, Gold, "under the existing statutes and county regulations, was not entitled to a contested case hearing, and the prospect of developing a subdivision is not a vested property right pro- © 2011 Thomson Reuters 5