02/03/87 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

-3- Court case, the zoning map as published was illegible. In this case, the court said that this technicality was not material enough to justify invalidating the ordinance. In Pilgrim v. City of Winona, a 1977 Minnesota Supreme Court case, the city's failure to publish not~ce of a public hearing or to hold a hearing on a rezoning was sufficient procedural error for the court to determine that the city's ordinance was invalid, even though five years had elapsed since the ordinance was adopted. The enabling act also governs the scope and substance of the ordinance. The purpose of the ordinance must be to pro~ote the public health, safety, morals or general welfare. The means used to meet the purpose are limited; the city can be divided into various districts, with different uses authorized in different districts. However, the regulations must be uniform within a given district. The enabling act requires and establishes other procedural requirements which must be followed in the adoption of a zoning ordinance. For example, the zoning ordinance must be adopted by 2/3 vote of the city council. If any of these procedural requirements are not met, the ordinance can be invalidated, because its adoption did not follow the requirements of the enabling act. B. General Constitutionality. Besides being subject to consistency requirements with the enabling act, zoning ordinances must be within.constitutional limitations. Zoning ordinances are permitted under the constitution if they are reasonably related to serve the public health, safety, morals or general welfare. In essence, these are the legitimate exercises of a government's authority to regulate. No regulation will be upheld under the constitution if it doesn't further one of the above-mentioned objectives. A zoning ordinance may therefore be challenged as not furthering these goals. Such a challenge is often referred to by lawyers as a general constitutionality challenge, because such a challenge maintains that the ordinance itself, without the need to apply it or consider its application to any specific piece of property or entity, does not further one of the legitimate constitutional goals. General constitutional challenges to zoning ordinances were common the early days of zoning. General constitutionality challenges are cor~non today, however, they are usually coupled with a specific constitutional challenge as well. Few, if any, zoning cases of late have been decided on the general constitutionality issue alone. When the Southdale Shopping Center was first established in the Village of Edina, a prominent architect and a real estate consultant both recom~ended that uses surrounding a major retail shopping center like Southdale should be F~oncompetitive to the shopping center. Acting on this advice, the Village of Edina zoned the land around Southdale for uses which would not !:,_~ ,':cmpetitive with the retail establishments in Southdale; for example, '~ b'..~ii~ix~, r-~.~'~cn~l n',~-~.~.~l district .... ~ti ' ~ .... ~ ~-~e dwet~in~ etc A Cc;'~'ccr~ wJlic]i was ZOrled for office building purposes. The landowner challenged that designation arguing that the reason the city zoned the