Last summer, the Minnesota Supreme Court, in a case entitled
Krummenacher v. City of Minnetonka, reversed the City of
Minnetonka's application of a widely-followed standard for
approving variances arising under a municipal zoning ordinance. The
effect of the ruling was immediate and far-reaching, causing most
cities to halt consideration of any variance request and even
refusing to accept applications for such relief.
While variances still may be approved under Minnesota law, even in
accordance with the Supreme Court's decision, at least for
zoning variances, they are only allowed when the applicant has no
other reasonable use of the property in question. So, for example,
in the Krummenacher case, the court determined, contrary to the
City of Minnetonka, that a request for a variance could not be
approved to allow a garage addition in a residential neighborhood
because the applicant already had an existing reasonable use of
property.
The court contrasted zoning variances arising under municipal
statutory authority with those allowed for counties but its
decision did not affect the county authority. Nonetheless,
Minnesota counties have a higher level of concern about the scope
of their authority in this area.
Legislation introduced by Rep. Joyce Peppin (R-Rogers) and Sen. Gen
Olson (R-Minnetrista) (HF 52/SF 13) seeks to change the statute in
question by establishing a new statutory standard that mimics that
which had been widely followed for several decades. It would also
change the county version of the variance statute.
Under the proposed legislation, the "undue
hardship" standard in current law would be discarded in
favor of a new "practical difficulty" standard.
Under this standard, a municipality could approve a zoning variance
if: (1)the request is consistent with the local comprehensive plan;
(2) allows a reasonable use not otherwise prohibited under the
municipal zoning ordinance; (3) the circumstances are unique and
not created by the applicant; and (4) does not alter the essential
character of the surrounding area. The variance could be approved
with conditions to avoid adverse impacts on adjacent
properties.
The objective of correcting Krummenacher is widely supported by
public and private organizations. Having said that, there continues
to be disagreement about the precise language needed to fix the
statute. Stakeholder groups have been meeting over the last several
weeks to resolve their differences. A hearing on the bill is
scheduled for this Thursday; it is possible that it may be voted to
the floor without a consensus on the language having been achieved.
This could have some impact on the timing of floor action and/or
consideration of the companion bill in the Senate.
If adopted and signed into law, cities (and counties) would be able
to resume processing variances of the sort rejected in the
Krummenacher case. When that happens, there may be a flood of
applications for variances that had been put on the shelf in light
of the Supreme Court's decision. On the other hand,
approval of necessary variances could be the tonic that allows
viable projects to proceed, along with construction jobs and
economic impact that goes along with them.
Look to Larkin Hoffman for updates on this important legislation as
the session progresses.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
