STILL SAVING THE GREEN Friends of Rice Field are still working to Save the Green. Individual residents of Beaverdale, as well as a representative of the constituency of friends of Rice Field, have filed suit in Polk County District Court to halt development on Rice Field. The plaintiffs’ assert that the rezoning of Rice Field was illegal. State law requires that zoning changes be in accordance with a municipality’s comprehensive plan, and the plaintiffs assert that the Des Moines City Council failed to articulate any reason related to the comprehensive plan to support its zoning change. The plaintiffs also assert that the amendment is contrary to specific provisions of the comprehensive plan which protect single family housing on Beaver Avenue, so the amendment constitutes illegal spot zoning within a predominantly single family residential zone. At its meeting in November, 2013, the members of the Des Moines City Council made no reference to any principal of the comprehensive plan to support the zoning change; nor did the developer. The City has not brought forward an argument based on conformity to the comprehensive plan, even now. The City has countered the plaintiffs’ complaint by arguing that the action of the City Council was not zoning action at all. The municipality, its lawyers said, merely tinkered with the drawings and specifications of the original plan of Rice Development Partners, LLC approved in 2007. The plaintiffs responded that Rice Field is zoned as a PUD (planned unit development), and a PUD classification does not list building concepts permitted in, or restricted to, a particular zone, as does typical Euclidean zones. The plaintiffs argue that land use restrictions of a PUD are found in the specifications of the development proposal. Without those specifications, the PUD is a blank slate. A zoning ordinance which is a blank slate provides absolutely no information about use restrictions, and would be unconstitutional. The Iowa Supreme Court has periodically reminded municipalities that zoning is governed by constitutional principles articulated by the United States Supreme Court. One of those principles is that a zoning ordinance must be sufficiently specific for the public to be able to discern what is permitted, and what is prohibited. Thus, in order to be constitutional, the specifications of a PUD development proposal approved by a city council must constitute the substance of the zoning ordinance. It follows that a change in the development specifications constitutes a change in zoning. The district court has ordered the City of Des Moines to produce the record of the November 2013 council meeting for review by the court. It also ordered the City to produce the record of the council meeting at which the City rezoned Rice Field PUD. The next step will be to schedule a trial date.
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 22:50:14 +0000
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