Miles v. City of Florence

79 P.3d 382, 190 Or. App. 500, 2003 Ore. App. LEXIS 1533
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedNovember 13, 2003
Docket2003-007; A121477
StatusPublished

This text of 79 P.3d 382 (Miles v. City of Florence) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Miles v. City of Florence, 79 P.3d 382, 190 Or. App. 500, 2003 Ore. App. LEXIS 1533 (Or. Ct. App. 2003).

Opinion

LINDER, «J.

Safeway Inc. (Safeway), intervenor below, sought and obtained a conditional use permit from the City of Florence to build a gas station on property where it has an existing grocery store. Bud Miles and Miles Oil Co. (opponents) opposed the permit and appealed its approval first to the city council and then to LUBA. On appeal to LUBA, opponents argued, inter alia, that Safeway’s site plan did not meet the city’s requirement that the site have a minimum of 150 feet of frontage. LUBA concluded that, because the pertinent ordinance is ambiguous, it could not resolve that issue. LUBA therefore remanded the case to the city for an interpretation of the ordinance. Safeway petitions for review, renewing various arguments that it made to LUBA. Because we agree that opponents did not adequately preserve the frontage issue for LUBA’s review, we reverse.

A few additional facts, both substantive and procedural, provide added context for our discussion. As already noted, Safeway owns an existing grocery store on property in the City of Florence and proposes to build a gas station on the same property. The property is bordered by Highway 101 to the west, Sixth Street to the south, and Seventh Street to the north. The proposed gas station site would have one shared access with an existing bank directly onto Highway 101. The site also would be accessible from Sixth and Seventh Streets.

Safeway’s application for the conditional use permit was first approved by the local planning commission. In issuing the approval, the planning commission made findings of fact that addressed, among other things, whether Safeway’s site plan satisfied the site dimension specifications that apply to gas stations. In particular, the planning commission noted that the pertinent site dimension specifications require that a site for a gas station have a minimum of 150 feet of frontage. The planning commission, in response to that requirement, specifically found that the frontage on Highway 101 measured 177 feet. The findings did not [503]*503address whether, to meet the city’s frontage requirement, the frontage should be measured on Highway 101 as opposed to one of the other streets bordering the property.

Opponents appealed the planning commission’s approval to the city council. Pursuant to a City of Florence ordinance governing the appeal, opponents were required to file a written “petition on appeal” that included a statement of “[t]he specific errors, if any, made in the decision of the initial action and the grounds therefore.”1 Opponents did so, raising four issues for the city council’s review, none of which involved the city’s minimum 150-foot frontage requirement or whether Safeway’s proposal satisfied it. The city council rejected opponents’ challenges and affirmed the approval of Safeways conditional use permit. In doing so, the city council adopted the planning commission’s findings, including the finding that the Highway 101 frontage for Safeway’s proposed site measures 177 feet.

On appeal to LUBA, opponents abandoned the four issues that they had specified in their appeal to the city council. They instead advanced two arguments that they had not identified in their petition to the city council, including an argument that the city council, in adopting the planning commission’s findings, erroneously concluded that Safeway’s proposal satisfied the city’s 150-foot minimum frontage specification. In that regard, opponents took the position that the frontage for the site had to be measured on Seventh Street, not Highway 101. So measured, the frontage was less than 150 feet, which would not satisfy the city’s site dimension requirements.

LUBA agreed with Safeway that opponents’ first argument, relating to the lack of findings on several applicable approval criteria, was unpreserved. LUBA reasoned that opponents’ first opportunity to challenge the adequacy of the planning commission’s findings occurred in their appeal to the city council. Opponents had not raised the challenge at that point, however, so LUBA declined to consider the issue.

[504]*504But LUBA did not agree with Safeway that opponents’ second argument, relating to the 150-foot minimum frontage requirement, was likewise unpreserved. LUBA concluded that the issue had been raised at the first opportunity for doing so — that is, during the planning commission hearing — and that raising it at that level was sufficient to preserve it for LUBA’s review:

“The planning commission’s questioning of the applicant’s representative shows there was significant confusion below concerning how the 150-foot frontage requirement is applied to lots with frontage on more than one road and whether the [ordinance’s] 150-foot frontage requirement should be applied to the Highway 101 frontage or to the Seventh Street frontage. This discussion occurred prior to the close of the final evidentiary hearing in this matter and was sufficient to raise the issue that is presented in the second assignment of error.”

Miles v. City of Florence, 44 Or LUBA 411, 417-18 (2003) (citation to record omitted). LUBA thus implicitly rejected Safewa/s argument that opponents waived the frontage issue by not raising it in their appeal to the city council. LUBA did not resolve the merits of the issue, however, because it concluded that the city’s ordinance imposing the 150-foot minimum frontage specification was ambiguous and should be interpreted by the city in the first instance. LUBA therefore remanded the case to the city council.

Safeway petitions for judicial review, raising two assignments of error. Safeway first asserts that the city’s interpretation of the frontage ordinance was implicit in its approval of the conditional use permit and that LUBA’s remand to the city therefore was unnecessary. Second, Safeway assigns error to LUBA’s conclusion that the issue of which street should serve as the frontage for the site — i.e., Highway 101 or Seventh Street — was adequately preserved for LUBA’s review. In support of its second assignment of error, Safeway first contends that, contrary to LUBA’s conclusion, the limited discussion of the issue between the planning commission and Safeway s representative at the planning commission hearing did not satisfy the statutory requirement that an issue be “raised and accompanied by [505]*505statements or evidence sufficient to afford the governing body, planning commission, hearings body or hearings officer, and the parties an adequate opportunity to respond to each issue.” ORS 197.763(1).2 Second, and in the alternative, Safeway argues that, even if the frontage street issue was adequately raised at the planning commission level, opponents subsequently waived it by not presenting it in their appeal to the city council. We begin with that issue, because we agree with Safeway that the frontage issue was not preserved, and our conclusion in that regard is dispositive.3

Three statutes bear on the question of when issues are preserved for LUBA’s review. The first is ORS 197.763

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Bluebook (online)
79 P.3d 382, 190 Or. App. 500, 2003 Ore. App. LEXIS 1533, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/miles-v-city-of-florence-orctapp-2003.