Agenda - Planning Commission - 06/07/2007

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Zoning Bulletin the cir-y in court, claiming that the decision to disallow the stadium was arbitrary and capricious. In addition, it argued that the cir-y had grossly abused its discretion and violated federal and stat~ equal pro- tectIon guarantees. The court found in favor of rhe school, and the city appealed. Decision: Reversed. The appeals, court had to review the record for proof of the school's "clear legal right to relief" or the city's "gross abt;lse of discretion." The court found that the. city was granted broad discretion under the zoning ordinance to deny or grant conditional use permits and that, here, it had not abused its power by granting the permit partially. The court noted that, on appeal, the question was not whether evi- dence existed that supported the lower court's decision, but rather whether evidence existed that supported the city's original decision. If there was any evidence that supported the cir-y's decision, then it could not be considered a gross abus_e of discretion. This rev-iew process sup- ported the precedent that gave local agencies-and not courts-defer- ence in zoning matters. Conditional use permits were designed to provide for types of land uses that were "necessary and desirable, but which [were] potentially incompatible with usually allowed in a particular district." In circum- stances such as these, the administrative agency was given discretion to set conditions upon permit approval in an attempt to balance the com- peting interests. One of the factors that the city reasonably considered in this case was the compatibilir-y of the propose stadium with its surrOlli"1cTh."1g neighbor- hood; aside from neighborhood opposition, there was a legitimate con- cern over traffic and safer-y issues. Evidence of adverse affects on traffic in the area-which had two other stadiums within a one-mile radius- was enough for the city to deny the permit for the stadium. The school argued that the existence of the other stadiums proved that it had received unequal treatment by the cir-y in denying the permit. However, the court found that the existence of the other stadiums actu- ally worked against the school's case. Not only did the law state that the government could treat similarly situated applicants differently if there was a valid reason for the disparity, the examination of the character of the existing neighborhood was a legitimate function of an administra- tive zoning agency. The city was within its right to make its decision based on the con- clusion that building a third stadium in the area would exacerbare exist- ing traffic problems. Because there was evidence in the record that sup- ported the city's decision to deny the permit, the appeals court had to reverse the decision of the lower court. 4 168