Agenda - Planning Commission - 06/07/2012

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April 25, 2012 !Volume 6 1 No. 8 Zoning Bulletin of the public designation in the local newspaper, and then held the public meet- ing. Neither the City nor the HPC gave actual notice of the hearing to owners of property located within the proposed boundaries of the historic district. On July 1, 2002, the ordinance designating the City's downtown a historic district (the "Ordinance") was adopted by the City's Council. In 2008, Bradford Realty, Inc. ("Bradford") decided to repair the exterior of a house it owned and had used as income property since 1966. Bradford began to replace the original wood clapboard siding with "vinyl siding ... of the same color and approximate same width." The HPC soon sent a letter to Bradford no- tifying it that, since the property was in the downtown historic district, it needed a COA before proceeding with an exterior modification of the property. Brad- ford disagreed but applied for a COA under protest. Eventually, the HPC denied Bradford's COA application based on its finding that the utilization of vinyl sid- ing was inconsistent with the HPC design guidelines. Bradford then filed a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment against the HPC and City (collectively, "NAHPC"). Bradford alleged that NAHPC violated Brad- ford's due process rights because Bradford was not given actual notice of the en- actment of the historic district. Bradford asked the court to declare the Ordi- nance void. Finding there were no material issues of fact in dispute, and deciding the mat- ter on the law alone, the circuit court issued summary judgment in favor of Brad- ford on its due process violation claim. The NAHPC appealed. On appeal, the NAHPC argued that the enactment of the Ordinance was a legislative act which did not fall within the purview of the due process requirements of the 14th Amendment. Therefore, it contended, Bradford wad not entitled to actual notice of the Ordinance. Bradford countered that the Ordinance amounted to an adjudicative or ad- ministrative act, and thus required actual notice. DECISION: Reversed in part, and affirmed in part. The Court of Appeals of Indiana held that Bradford was not entitled to actual notice of the City's Ordinance designating the downtown as a historic district. The court said this was because the enactment of the Ordinance was a legislative act, not an adjudicatory act. Therefore, the court found it did not fall within the purview of the due process requirements of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The court explained that the 14th Amendment provides that "[n]o state ... shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process." At a minimum, said the court, those "words of the Due Process Clause ... require that deprivation of ... property by adjudication be preceded by notice and op- portunity for hearing appropriate to the nature of the case." Thus, in determining whether actual notice should have been given to Brad- ford, the court had to determine whether the ordinance was a legislative or adju- dicative act. If it was an adjudicative act, it required actual notice, and if it was legislative, it did not. Although the court recognized that the "line between legislation and adjudi- cation is not always easily drawn," the court explained that: "[I]egislation is pro- spective in effect and, more important, general in its application." 8 © 2012 Thomson Reuters