MT Sup. Court Rules in Favor of ZBA in Church Demolition Dispute with Historic Preservation Society Finding No Denial of Due Process Nor Abuse of Discretion

This post was authored by Samuel J. Creech, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Touro Law Law Center

In July of 2019, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Helena, MT had applied to the City of Hamilton (City) for a conditional Use Permit (CUP), through the Zoning Board of Adjustment, for permission to fully demolish St. Francis Catholic Church and rebuild a modern, more robust church complex in its place. As a further accommodation of this expansion, the Church also requested three variances from the setback, height, and parking requirements of the local zoning code. The project was so extensive it would ultimately result in the Church more than doubling its physical footprint.

In November of 2019, a mailer was sent to all residents in a 300 foot radius of the property and notice was placed in the local newspaper regarding the public hearing. The turnout for that hearing was so immense that it needed to be cancelled and rescheduled to further accommodate the sheer size of the citizen body in attendance. Ultimately, the hearing was attended by 300 citizens, held over the course of 7 days over the course of 7 months, and lasted a cumulative 19.5 hours. The ZBA’s record, by close of the hearings, was extensive.

When the CUP and all required variances were approved, a group of citizens formed as a the Hamilton Southside Historic Preservation Association, and brought suit against the ZBA and the Bishop as an arbitrary and capricious misuse of discretion and denial of due process.

The court rejected of all petitioner’s claims. The citizens argued that, while they could not articulate a specific violation of due process, their description of the hearings as “functionally chaotic” is enough to prove fatal to the fundamental fairness of the hearings. Furthermore, the citizens asserted the ZBA failed to properly analyze and reconcile the objective of the City’s Growth Policy in light of neighbors’ exhibits and public comment.

The common thread that linked the petitioners’ complaints regarding the CUP and the three variances is essentially an overreliance on The Staff Report’s findings. The Staff Report had been compiled in November of 2019, five months after the Bishop had applied for the CUP. When the CUP was ultimately adopted, the Staff Reports were a year old and before the public had a chance to grapple with them at the hearing. In essence, the petitioner objected on the grounds that the Staff Reports were prepared ‘in secret’.

The court found that the ZBA’s hearing provided a fundamentally fair process and reasonable opportunity for citizen participation. Within that framework, the court reasoned that the ZBA had no requirement to “explain in detail” why it decided the way it did, and furthermore, the record before the court did not indicate that the information the ZBA used to base its decision on was so lacking in fact and foundation that it was clearly unreasonable.

Ultimately, the court ruled that the citizens were in essence asking the court to review the evidentiary record to give greater weight to their own arguments, and the validity of their own analysis, that they themselves were so firmly convinced of. Such a rebalancing of the evidentiary record is not in accordance with the proper standard of review for such a controversy.

To determine whether an abuse of discretion has occurred in a decision by a zoning board of adjustment, the Supreme Court examines whether the information upon which the board based its decision is so lacking in fact and foundation that it is clearly unreasonable and constitutes an abuse of discretion. A court will not substitute its own discretion for that of a local zoning board.

Hamilton Southside Historic Preservation Association v Zoning Board of Adjustment of the City of Hamilton, 412 Mont. 519, 531 P.3d 584, 2023 MT 119 (2023)