This post was authored by Matthew Loescher, Esq.
This appeal involved a claim challenging the City of Minneapolis’s 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which alleged that adoption of the Plan violated Minnesota environmental law. Prior to the vote of the Minneapolis City Council to approve the Plan, appellants Smart Growth Minneapolis, Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis, and Minnesota Citizens for the Protection of Migratory Birds filed a complaint against the City, challenging the Plan under Minnesota Environmental Policy Act (MEPA). The district court held that since comprehensive plans are specifically exempt from environmental review under rule 4410.4600, comprehensive plans are likewise exempt from judicial review under Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA). The district court dismissed Smart Growth’s claim based on a second, independent conclusion: that Smart Growth “failed to establish a prima facie showing under MERA.” The court of appeals affirmed this holding.
On appeal, the City contended that allowing Smart Growth’s MERA challenge to proceed would create “irreconcilable inconsistency” between MERA and MEPA because Smart Growth could obtain environmental review of the Plan under MERA that it could not obtain under MEPA. The City further claimed that MERA’s more general provision was superseded by MEPA and its exemption rule because MEPA was passed later in time and specifically addressed environmental review of activity by governmental units. The court found that it was not inconsistent to recognize that a MERA challenge might result in environmental review that would not be required under MEPA, given that MERA was broader in scope than MEPA and applied to “any conduct” of “any person”—including municipal governments. Furthermore, the MEPA did not contain any express language exempting it from the reach of MERA, but instead expressly limited the application of its provisions, including the administrative rules promulgated under it, to only that Act. The court therefore held that the district court erred in concluding that Smart Growth’s claims were barred under Minnesota law, because rule 4410.4600 did not exempt comprehensive plans from environmental review under MERA.
Smart Growth claimed that a presumed full build-out of the plan was likely to materially adversely affect the environment in a number of ways, such as increasing the rate and volume of stormwater runoff, threatening sanitary sewer systems and water supply, reducing wildlife habitat, and diminishing air quality. Accepting all of Smart Growth’s allegations as true and construing all reasonable inferences in Smart Growth’s favor, the court found these allegations were sufficient to allege causation at the Rule 12.02(e) stage. Accordingly, the district court erred in dismissing Smart Growth’s complaint.
State of Minnesota v City of Minneapolis, 2021 WL 485400 (MN 2/10/2021)
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