Agenda - Planning Commission - 10/04/2012

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July 25, 2012 I Volume 6 I Issue 14 Zoning Bulletin the property from agricultural to industrial and approved the requested conditional uses. The Board's approval of the rezone was opposed by several parties, including: Dakota Resource Council (the "Council"), a membership -based nonprofit corporation which, among other things, works for preservation of family farms, regulation of coal mining and oil and gas development, protec- tion of ground water and clean air, and sound management of solid and toxic wastes. The district court affirmed on the merits the Board's decision to rezone the property and allow the conditional uses. The Council appealed. In their cross -appeal, the Board and Great Northern contended that the Council lacked standing to appeal the Board's decision to the district court. DECISION: Affirmed The Supreme Court of North Dakota held that the Council had associational standing to appeal the Board's decision. In so holding, the court explained that "standing" is "the concept used 'to determine if a party is sufficiently affected so as to insure that a justiciable controversy is presented to the court.' " The court said that a party seeking relief from a court "must demonstrate they have standing by alleging such a personal stake in the outcome of a controversy to justify the court's exercise of remedial powers on their behalf." Here, the Council had contended that it had associational standing because it was representing the interests of some of its members who would have indi- vidual standing. The court said that as a nonprofit that had not suffered an injury itself, the Council could bring this challenge to the rezone as a representative of its members (with associational standing) if: "(a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right; (b) the interests it [sought] to protect [were] germane to the organization; and (c) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested require[d] the participation of individual members in the lawsuit." The Board and Great Northern contested only the first element of that three - prong test for associational standing. They argued that the record did not es- tablish that any of the Council's members had standing to sue in their own right. The court disagreed with the Board and Great Northern. If found that at least two of the Council's members had standing to appeal the Board's deci- sion in their own right because the two individuals were "aggrieved" by the Board's approval of Great Northern's request for a zone change. The court found they were aggrieved in that they had a personal interest that could be enlarged or diminished by the Board's decision. More specifically, the County zoning ordinance required all landowners within 200 feet of the proposed rezoned tract be given notice of the hearing on any application for a zoning change. The court found this notice requirement was "effectively a legislative determination that landowners within 200 feet of the proposed rezoned prop- erty have a significant, protectable interest in the Board's decision whether to 10 ©2012 Thomson Reuters