Agenda - Planning Commission - 01/04/2018

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Zoning Bulletin December 10, 2017 I Volume 11 I Issue 23 CBS appealed. DECISION: Judgment of district court affirmed. The Supreme Court of Utah also agreed with the City's arguments. The court held that the procedural requirements of eminent domain mandated by Utah's Eminent Domain Statutes (i.e., that property could not be taken by the City unless the City Council approved the taking) did not apply because, "under the Billboard Compensation Statute, relocation denials are merely `considered' to be the acquisition of a billboard structure by eminent domain for compensation purposes, but th[ose] denials do not actually involve the formal exercise of the eminent domain power and the concomitant procedures the legislature has prescribed to restrain the exercise of that power." In other words, the court read the Billboard Compensation Statute to treat a denial under the Billboard Relocation Statute (such as the City's denial of CBS's billboard relocation request, here) as "an acquisition for compensation purposes only, even though the denial itself [was] not an acquisition." In sum, the court concluded that Utah's Eminent Domain Statutes "do not apply to actions that may trigger the Billboard Compensation Statute." The court interpreted the Billboard Compensation Statute to mean that, by denying billboard relocation requests that meet the spacing requirements (as the City had done here with CBS), the. City is "considered to have initiated the acquisi- tion of a billboard structure by eminent domain, solely for purposes of just compensation as dictated in that section." Because "considered" in that context means "to look upon (as)," the court concluded that billboard relocation deni- als that meet the spacing requirements are "only to be looked upon as acquisi- tions by eminent domain,' though in fact they are not.", Case Note: CBS also challenged the denial of its relocation request as violating the City's Billboard Ordinance, and as being arbitrary and capricious. The appellate court rejected both of these arguments. The court found that the City's Billboard Ordinance did not forbid the City from denying a billboard relocation request that fit within the spacing requirements of the Billboard Compensation Statute (as with CBS' request here). And, the court found that the City mayor's decision to deny CBS' billboard relocation request was not arbitrary and capricious because it fitrthered the mayor's established goal of achieving a net reduction in the number of billboards in the area. © 2017 Thomson Reuters 9