Court overturns Belfast big-box suit dismissal

BELFAST – The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has overturned a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a neighbor to the city’s big-box zone claiming the zone was illegal.

In a unanimous decision handed down Thursday, the Law Court ruled in favor of Searsport Avenue residents Lawrence D. and Mia Roop’s contention that they had legal standing as abutters, and should have been allowed to bring suit against the city.

The suit, filed two years ago by the Roops and the citizen group Belfast First, contended that the process the city used to create the special zone for retail stores up to 200,000 square feet in size was flawed.

Waldo County Superior Court Justice Nancy Mills, acting on a motion filed by the city last year, dismissed both Belfast First and the Roops as plaintiffs in the lawsuit on the grounds that they did not have standing to contest the city’s actions. The Roops appealed that decision to Maine’s highest court.

In vacating Justice Mills’ decision, the Law Court ruled that the Roops have standing and ordered that the suit be sent back to Superior Court “for further proceedings” consistent with the higher court’s opinion.

The so-called big-box zone was created by referendum in 2005 after a citizens petition demanded that the city revise its comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance to allow 200,000-square-foot stores on a specific parcel on Searsport Avenue.

Although the Roops and other landowners abutting the district were notified about the hearings to amend the plan and ordinance, neither they, the comprehensive plan committee or the planning board were allowed to change the language of the amendments.

The Roops argued that the new district was invalid because the “process employed to enact it violated the citizen participation requirement” protected by state law, and because the rights of their property had been adversely affected by the new zone.

The high court found that the Roops had standing because land adjacent to their property was rezoned within the new Searsport Avenue Commercial District. The court noted, “In the context of disputes involving an abutting landowner, the standing threshold is minimal.”

In the opinion written by Justice Warren H. Silver, the court noted there was strong historic precedent that grants abutters standing, even in cases where development would not decrease property values. Silver noted that injuries other than economic harm were sufficient to confer standing.

The court noted that to deny the Roops the ability to challenge the method the city used to change the zoning was an “injury that is real and present.”

It said the fact that the Roops received written notice from the city about the public hearings on the zone change was indicative of their standing in the matter.

“Clearly, the Roops are among the category of persons best suited to bring the challenge,” the court found. “Therefore the Roops, as citizens of Belfast owning land that abuts the new district, have standing to seek a declaratory judgment as to the process used by the city to prepare amendments to the city’s zoning ordinance and comprehensive plan.”