Agenda - Planning Commission - 11/06/2014

Home

October 10, 2014 I Volume 8 I Issue 19 Zoning Bulletin failure to exhaust administrative remedies was excused on the ground that exhaus- tion would have been inadequate or futile. The Background/Facts: Carol Holt ("Holt") owned an unimproved lot in Stonington, Connecticut (the "Town"). Holt had purchased the lot in May 2005, relying on an opinion letter from the Town's zoning enforcement officer, which had been drafted in early 2005 (the "2005 opinion letter"). The 2005 opinion let- ter informed the prior owner of the lot that the property could be suitable for building a single-family residence. When Holt applied for a zoning petiuit so that she could build a house on the lot, a neighbor objected to Holt's development of the lot. The neighbor pointed to a 1981 sale of a 10-foot strip of land on the lot to a neighboring property. That sale had apparently been overlooked by the Town's zoning enforcement officer when the 2005 opinion letter was prepared. After delays, Holt eventually withdrew her permit application. Later, the Town's zoning board of appeals (the "Board") overturned the 2005 opinion letter, deciding on the basis of the 1981 alteration to the property that Holt was precluded from building on the lot because it did not conform with the zoning regulations. Holt appealed the Board's decision to state trial court. That court concluded that the Board's decision was not appealable because the Board lacked jurisdic- tion to review the 2005 opinion letter given that the letter was an "advisory opinion and not a decision subject to appeal." Nevertheless, in December 2009, Holt filed a diversity suit in federal court. (The federal judiciary has the power to hear a civil case where the persons that are parties are "diverse" in citizenship, which generally indicates that they are citizens of different states or non-U.S. citizens.) Among other things, she sought to estop the Town from preventing her from building on the lot. The district court ultimately entered an injunction estopping the Town "from determining that the [property in question] is unbuildable under the Town's zoning regulations." The Town appealed to the United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. The Town argued that Holt had failed to exhaust available and adequate state law administrative remedies before she filed her municipal estoppel claim in federal court. The Town noted that, under Connecticut law, "a failure to exhaust administrative remedies is a defect that deprives the court of subject matter juris- diction to act in the case." Holt argued that she was not required to exhaust administrative remedies. In the alternative, she argued that any failure to exhaust administrative remedies should have been excused because such efforts would have been inadequate or futile. DECISION: Judgment of district court vacated, and matter remanded. The United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, held that Holt failed to exhaust her administrative remedies as required before filing the federal lawsuit. The court found that Holt had withdrawn her application for a zoning permit before Stonington zoning officials had acted on the application. The court also found that the 2005 opinion letter "did not constitute a decision by administrative officials," and thus was "not a decision from which a landowner can appeal." Rather, said the court, the "final determination that a single-family residence could be constructed on the plaintiff's lot is made by the issuance of appropriate permits, such as a building permit or a certificate of zoning compliance." Thus, Holt could only have appealed to court if she had exhausted her administrative 10 ©2014 Thomson Reuters