Agenda - Planning Commission - 06/01/1999

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Page 6- April 10, 1999 Z.B. lapped with the bingo hall's. According to the council, the zoning code didn't allow shared parking when there was any overlap of peak parking hours with any other business that would share the parking spaces. Hillcrest appealed to court. It claimed the ordinance clearly allowed it to rely on shared-parking spaces so tong as its peak parking hours didn't overlap with the peak parking hours of at least one other business that used the same off-street parking spaces. According to Hillcrest, the city council's interpretatioh of the zoning code frustrated the policy behind the shared-parking ordinance. According to the city planning administrator, the ordinance was written to avoid devoting a great deal of land to parking spaces that weren't needed because not all businesses needed their parking at the same time. DECISION: Reversed and returned to the city council. The city arbitrarily denied Hillcrest a license to operate a bingo hall. It should have allowed Hillcrest to rely on shared parking to meet its parking requirements. The city council denied Hillcrest's bingo license based solely on its failure to meeting parking requirements. ' However, a city zoning specialist and the planning administrator concluded the bingo hall could satisfy the parking re- quirements by using shared parking. The zoning specialist and the city attor- ney both recommended that the city council grant the license. The fact that the city planning administrator and the city council disagreed on the meaning of the ordinance suggested the ordinance was ambiguous, which meant the ordinance had to be interpreted in favor of Hillcrest. The ordinance had to be interpreted to allow sharing of off-street parking spaces among busi- nesses whose peak parking hours didn't overlap. This interpretation was the least restrictive on property owners and furthered the policy behind the ordi- nance -- to avoid devoting more land than was needed to parking. see also: Frank's Nursery Sales Inc. v. City of RosevilIe, 295 N. W. 2d 604 (1980). see also: VanLandschoot v. City of Mendota Heights, 336 N. W. 2d 503 (1983). /2.0 Conditional Use-- Owner asks court to prohibit city from revoking his permit Citation: Dailey v. City of Long Lake, Court of Appeals of Minnesota, No. C3-98-1663 (1999) In 1987, Dailey opened an auto-auction business in an industrial district of the .city of Long Lake, Minn. The city issued Dailey a conditional use permit allowing him to maintain a 6-foot chainlink fence rather than the required 8-foot screening fence. The city revoked Dailey's permit in 1992, claiming the property had be- come unsightly. It issued Dailey another permit a month later, conditioned on Dailey keeping the autos in an orderly fashion and keeping the fence childproof and in good repair.