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Country View Acres Homeowners v. Dickinson County
Country View Acres Homeowners, Plaintiff-Appellant,
vs.
Dickinson County, Iowa and Dickinson County Board of Adjustment, Defendants-Appellees,
and
Woodlyn Hills Estates, LLC, Intervenor.
Attorney for Appellant
Jamie Hunter and Gary Dickey
Attorney for Appellees
Eric M. Updegraff and Alex S. Dornacker
Attorney for Intervenor
David C. Briese
Court of Appeals
Court of Appeals Opinion
Opinion Number:
Date Published:
Summary
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Dickinson County, Charles Borth, Judge. REVERSED AND REMANDED WITH DIRECTIONS. Heard by Bower, C.J., Chicchelly, J., and Doyle, S.J. Opinion by Doyle, S.J. (20 pages)
Woodlyn Hills Estates, LLC (Woodlyn Hills) owns nearly eighty-eight acres of real estate in rural Dickinson County; it applied for a conditional use permit to develop an RV park with 174 spots. Following public hearings, the Dickinson County Board of Adjustment (the Board) voted 3-2 to grant the permit. Country View Acres Homeowners (the Homeowners), a nonprofit association of individuals who own homes in Dickinson County near the proposed RV park, petitioned for a writ of certiorari to challenge the Board’s decision. The district court allowed Woodlyn Hills to intervene in the proceedings and, following the admission of some additional evidence, ultimately annulled the writ. On appeal, the Homeowners claim the writ should have been sustained because the Board acted illegally by failing to substantially comply with procedural requirements before reaching its decision and because its decision to grant the conditional use permit is not supported by substantial evidence. OPINION HOLDS: Considering all the procedural issues discussed, we conclude the Board failed to substantially comply with its own procedural requirements and thus acted illegally. We need not address the parties’ other arguments raised on appeal. We reverse the ruling of the district court annulling the writ. We remand for reinstatement of the writ and for further proceedings, during which the Board should reopen the record for public comment. The Board shall receive Van Orsdel’s April 21 email and any correspondence submitted as attachment 4170, that have identifiable authors, which were not read at the April 25 meeting, and the letters from Megan Skalicky and Seth Skalicky, before conducting another vote on whether to grant the conditional use permit. We take no position on whether the conditional use permit for the RV park should be granted.
