Agenda - Planning Commission - 09/01/2016

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Zoning Bulletin July 25, 2016 1 Volume 10 Issue 14 DECISION: Judgment of district court affirmed. Rejecting the Silvertop Landowners' argument and agreeing with the district court,the Supreme Court of Montana held that the Commission- ers acted arbitrarily in waiving compliance with Resolution 2009-16. In so holding, the court noted that the procedural and substantive requirements of Resolution 2009-16 included: (1) a map prepared by a certified land surveyor indicating the boundaries of the area of land to be included in the district with the names of the landowners clearly marked, which had to be circulated with each of the petition's signature pages; (2) a specific fonnat for the signature pages; (3) a title ownership report pre- pared by a title company; and(4) an affidavit of the person circulating the petition, or each signature must be notarized. The Resolution further jprovided the procedure for submitting a petition to the County Clerk and at a 45 business-day waiting period pass either for Recorder,requiring th ` accepting more signatures in support of the petition, or for withdrawal statements from landowners who had changed their minds, to be 1 submitted. The court found it uncontested that both substantive and procedural requirements of Resolution 2009-16 had not been followed in this case. The court rejected the Silvertip Landowner's argument that the Com- missioners' failure to require strict compliance with Resolution 2009-16 did not prejudice the Neighbors' interest. The court found it"disconcert- ing that the same body that adopted Resolution 2009-16 as law [could] singlehandedly make the determination to `waive' the Resolution when time constraints [would] make compliance inconvenient, and upon its own assessment that no prejudice would result by its decision to do so." Although the Commissioners had noted on the record that"both parties 1 were held to the same standards,and benefitted from the easier stan- i' dards applied," the court found that there was no articulation of what standards were made "easier" by failing to follow the Resolution—or whether the public was in any way disadvantaged by the parties' compli- ance with "easier standards." Moreover, the court determined that to !, "waive some unidentified requirements for one petition may well insert 1 , uncertainty into the process for future petitioners, future protesters, and +� the public alike, and raise process concerns."For those reasons,the court stated that all Part 1 zoning petitions "should be held to the same consis- tent standard."In waiving requirements for the Silvertip Landowner' pe- tition, the court found that the Commissioners acted"arbitrarily and for reasons of convenience." The court concluded,noting, as the district court had noted, that the Silvertip Landowners were free to pursue a properly filed petition. I 2016 Thomson Reuters 9