Agenda - Planning Commission - 03/02/2017

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January 25, 2017 I Volume 11 I Issue 2 Zoning Bulletin matter on the law alone, the court issued summary judgment in favor of the City and against Lamar on all of Lamar's claims. Lamar appealed. DECISION: Judgment of Circuit Court affirmed. The Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, first held that the Agree- ment exceeded the scope of the City's powers in violation of RSMo § 432.070 and was therefore void and unenforceable. The court explained that § 432.070 imposes three requirements on government contracts. It requires a contract must be: (1) within the scope of the governmental entity's powers; (2) for proper consideration: and (3) and duly authorized and in writing. A contract that fails to satisfy any one of those mandatory requirements is not only void- able, but wholly void, and of no legal effect, said the court. Here, only one of those three requirements was implicated —the require- ment that a contract "shall be within the scope of [a city's] powers or expressly authorized by law." The court explained that under settled law, a city cannot contract away its governmental functions and police powers. If a city does so, then it exceeds the scope of the city's powers and the contract is void. The court noted that zoning ordinances constitute an exercise of a state's police power, and here the City's billboard ordinance was enacted pursuant to its delegated zoning police power. Here, found the court, "[t]he plain language of the Agreement prohibited the City from enforcing its billboard ordinance, save wind load and electrical requirements," and thus had "the effect of interfering [with the proper exercise of City's police power], [and] must nec- essarily give way to an appropriate exercise of [City's] police power." In other words, because the City had no authority to contract away future enforcement of its zoning ordinance against rebuilt or relocated billboards, the Agreement exceeded the scope of the City's powers in violation of § 432.070, and was therefore void. Lamar had contended that the City was equitably estopped from denying the validity and enforceability of the Agreement, having accepted the benefits of the Agreement, and "because to conclude otherwise would result in a manifest injustice." Lamar noted that the City accepted the benefit of the Agreement, and that Lamar, in reliance on the Agreement, removed several signs because the "cap" provision of the Agreement necessitated that it do so before applying to "replace" the removed signs in the same or a new location. The court rejected Lamar's argument, noting that "[i]t is a long settled principle in Missouri that [c]ities cannot be made liable, either on the theory of estoppel or implied contract, by reason of the accepting and using [of] the benefits derived from void contracts.' " In summary, the court found there was "no reasoned authority for the proposition that the doctrine of equitable estop- pel can be employed to enforce a municipal contract that is void ab initio pur- suant to section 432.070, even in the face of `exceptional circumstances." Rather, said the court, it is a "well -recognized rule that the doctrine of estop- pel is not applied in cases . . . where the city had no power under any circum- stances to make the . . . contract in question," such as here. Accordingly, the appellate court concluded that the trial court did not err in concluding that as a matter of law, the Agreement could not be enforced against the City, or otherwise remediated, pursuant to the doctrine of equitable estoppel because 4 ©2017 Thomson Reuters