Agenda - Planning Commission - 09/06/2018

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Zoning Bulletin July 10, 2018 I Volume 12 I Issue 13 to trigger the thirty -day deadline for seeking certiorari review," and that such a written, fact-finding decision had not been made. Alternatively, they argued that even if the minutes of the Board's meetings could be sufficient to trigger the 30 day period, the December 8 minutes were not properly filed until officially approved and the approval vote posted on January 6, 2017. Thus, they claimed that their January 25 petition was timely: The district court granted the City's motion to dismiss the Residents' petition for certiorari. The court concluded that the "thirty -day time pe- riod begins to run from the time the appealing party has either actual knowledge or is chargeable with knowledge of the decision to be appealed." Because it was "undisputed" that Residents attended both the October 13 and the December 8 meetings, the court found that they had actual knowledge of the Board's decisions as of those dates, and that their January 25 petition was filed more than thirty days after that knowledge. The Residents appealed, arguing that their petition for certiorari was timely. DECISION: Judgment of district court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. The Supreme Court of Iowa first held that, contrary to the Residents' argument, the time for appeal from a zoning decision "runs from the date of the decision, regardless of the alleged adequacy of any findings of fact." Significantly, the court pointed to its certiorari rule requiring the petition to be filed "within 30 days from the time the tribunal, board or officer exceeded its jurisdiction or otherwise acted illegally." (Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.1402(3).) The court found that the Residents' interpretation of "decision" as including only those decisions supported by sufficient findings of fact would "create a stark conflict between Iowa Code sec- tion 414.15 and Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.1402(3), a circumstance [the court] noiuially [tries] to avoid." Moreover, the court found it was sound policy to ensure the deadline to petition for a writ of certiorari be "as clear as possible" and not subject to "the unpredictable outcome of a debate over the sufficiency of factual findings." Next, the court held that a zoning decision is "filed in the office of the board" —thus triggering the 30 day deadline to file a petition for writ of certiorari under Iowa Code section 414.15—when: (1) it is in "some documentary form" such as official meeting minutes; (2) is filed either in electronic or paper form; (3) and has been posted on the board's publicly available website that the board uses as a repository for official documents. Importantly, (with support from out-of-state appellate courts addressing the same statutory terms) the court also held that proposed meeting minutes do not constitute a zoning "decision," but that only ap- proved and posted meeting minutes constitute a zoning "decision" —the © 2018 Thomson Reuters 7