Nearly every landowner who walks into my office believes the deck is stacked the same way in every land use fight: the city holds the cards, the applicant begs, and no court will second-guess a local body on a local question. That is half right and half backwards.
Minnesota sorts zoning decisions into two categories, and the deference runs opposite to what applicants expect. When a city rezones — an act of policy touching the public at large — it gets wide latitude. When the same council rules on one variance or one conditional use permit, it is applying standards it wrote itself to a single parcel, and the Supreme Court has said so without hedging: the authority “is less circumscribed by judicial oversight when it considers zoning or rezoning than when it considers a special use permit or a variance.” Honn v. City of Coon Rapids, 313 N.W.2d 409, 417 (Minn. 1981).
Three consequences follow, and none is obvious from the outside. A conditional use permit is not a favor; the use is already declared acceptable in the district, the applicant’s only job is to satisfy the ordinance’s own standards, and a denial in the teeth of that showing is arbitrary. A variance is the harder ask, not the easier one, even after the Legislature relaxed the standard in 2011. And behind both sits a 60-day clock that converts municipal silence into a grant — the statute does not say the city must act within 60 days, it says failure to deny within 60 days is approval.
A variance asks the city to excuse a rule; a CUP asks it to apply one
Honn drew the line and then explained that the line is not about the standard of review: “Our case law distinguishes between zoning matters which are legislative in nature (rezoning) and those which are quasi-judicial (variances and special use permits). Even so, the standard of review is the same for all zoning matters, namely, whether the zoning authority’s action was reasonable.” 313 N.W.2d at 416–17. What changes is the content of reasonableness:
In legislative zoning, the municipal body is formulating public policy, so the inquiry focuses on whether the proposed use promotes the public welfare. In quasi-judicial zoning, public policy has already been established and the inquiry focuses on whether the proposed use is contrary to the general welfare as already established in the zoning ordinance.
Id. at 417. A rezoning survives on any rational basis. A CUP denial has to be tied to the standards the city already put in its own ordinance. That is a much shorter leash, and it is the leash most councils forget they are wearing.
The variance is quasi-judicial as well, but the substantive test the applicant must clear is stiffer, and the statute caps what a variance can ever accomplish no matter how sympathetic the facts.
The 2011 amendment loosened one element out of three
Before 2011, Minn. Stat. § 462.357, subd. 6, demanded “undue hardship,” defined to mean the property “cannot be put to a reasonable use if used under conditions allowed by the official controls.” Cities had been reading that through Rowell v. Board of Adjustment of Moorhead, a 1989 Court of Appeals decision that treated it as a “reasonable manner” test. In 2010 the Supreme Court threw that reading out and told the Legislature exactly what it would take to change the result:
We are unable to interpret the statutory language to mean anything other than what the text clearly says — that to obtain a municipal variance, an applicant must establish that “the property in question cannot be put to a reasonable use if used under conditions allowed by the official controls.” … [U]nless and until the legislature takes action to provide a more flexible variance standard for municipalities, we are constrained by the language of the statute to hold that a municipality does not have the authority to grant a variance unless the applicant can show that her property cannot be put to a reasonable use without the variance.
Krummenacher v. City of Minnetonka, 783 N.W.2d 721, 732 (Minn. 2010).
The Legislature accepted that invitation in under a year. Act of May 5, 2011, ch. 19, §§ 1–2, rewrote both the county statute (§ 394.27, subd. 7, striking “hardship” and the old “practical difficulties or particular hardship” framework) and the municipal statute (§ 462.357, subd. 6, striking “undue hardship”), substituting one defined “practical difficulties” standard in each. The act was effective the day following final enactment; it was signed May 5, 2011. Here is the current municipal text:
Variances shall only be permitted when they are in harmony with the general purposes and intent of the ordinance and when the variances are consistent with the comprehensive plan. Variances may be granted when the applicant for the variance establishes that there are practical difficulties in complying with the zoning ordinance. “Practical difficulties,” as used in connection with the granting of a variance, means that the property owner proposes to use the property in a reasonable manner not permitted by the zoning ordinance; the plight of the landowner is due to circumstances unique to the property not created by the landowner; and the variance, if granted, will not alter the essential character of the locality. Economic considerations alone do not constitute practical difficulties.
Minn. Stat. § 462.357, subd. 6(2). The county version in § 394.27, subd. 7, reads almost word for word the same.
Now look at what actually moved. The first element went from cannot be put to a reasonable use to proposes to use the property in a reasonable manner not permitted by the ordinance — a real relaxation, and precisely the one Krummenacher had foreclosed. The second and third elements did not move an inch. Uniqueness not created by the landowner, and no alteration of the essential character of the locality, sat in the pre-2011 definition of undue hardship and sit in the post-2011 definition of practical difficulties, verbatim.
That is why the amendment disappoints so many applicants. In practice the second element is where variance applications die. A landowner who subdivides a parcel into lots too small to build on, or who bought the lot already knowing about the setback problem, created the plight himself, and the “reasonable manner” relaxation does exactly nothing for him. Add that the two threshold conditions in the first sentence — harmony with the ordinance’s purposes, consistency with the comprehensive plan — are independent requirements sitting on top of the three-element test rather than inside it, and the practical difficulties standard turns out to be five hurdles, not one.
Two carve-outs are worth carrying in your head. Practical difficulties “include, but are not limited to, inadequate access to direct sunlight for solar energy systems.” And variances “shall be granted for earth sheltered construction as defined in section 216C.06, subdivision 14, when in harmony with the ordinance” — one of the very few places in Minnesota zoning law where a variance is mandatory rather than discretionary.
There is no such thing as a use variance in Minnesota
The prohibition is flat, and it is the most important limit in the subdivision:
The board of appeals and adjustments or the governing body as the case may be, may not permit as a variance any use that is not allowed under the zoning ordinance for property in the zone where the affected person’s land is located.
Minn. Stat. § 462.357, subd. 6(2). The county statute agrees: “No variance may be granted that would allow any use that is not allowed in the zoning district in which the subject property is located.” Minn. Stat. § 394.27, subd. 7.
If the goal is a use the district does not permit, the variance track is closed regardless of how compelling the hardship is. The remaining paths are a conditional use permit where the ordinance lists the use as conditional, a rezoning, or an ordinance amendment. I see variance applications filed every year that are really use requests wearing a variance costume, and they lose on a ground that has nothing whatever to do with their merits.
One narrow exception lives in the same sentence block: the board or governing body “may permit as a variance the temporary use of a one family dwelling as a two family dwelling.”
Conditions, and the proportionality sentence buried at the end
The 2011 act added a proportionality requirement that did not exist before, and it is easy to miss because it sits at the tail of a very long subdivision. The board “may impose conditions in the granting of variances. A condition must be directly related to and must bear a rough proportionality to the impact created by the variance.” Minn. Stat. § 462.357, subd. 6(2); accord § 394.27, subd. 7. The pre-2011 text had said only that conditions could be imposed “to insure compliance and to protect adjacent properties.” Chapter 19 struck that phrase and dropped in the nexus-and-proportionality language borrowed from federal exactions doctrine.
I regard that as a live argument, not decoration. A city that grants a five-foot setback variance and conditions it on a dedication, a cash payment, or an unrelated site improvement now has a statutory standard to answer to instead of a general reasonableness gloss.
Conditions on a conditional use permit run on different rails. Section 462.3595 carries no proportionality sentence. It provides that a CUP “shall remain in effect as long as the conditions agreed upon are observed,” and requires a certified copy of the permit, legal description included, to be recorded with the county recorder or registrar of titles. Minn. Stat. § 462.3595, subds. 3, 4. The county counterpart is broader still, allowing “such additional restrictions or conditions as [the approval authority] deems necessary to protect the public interest, including but not limited to matters relating to appearance, lighting, hours of operation and performance characteristics.” Minn. Stat. § 394.301, subd. 2.
Do not skip past that recording requirement. An unrecorded CUP still binds the parties, but a later purchaser running title may never find the conditions limiting the use — which is a recurring and expensive surprise in due diligence on income property.
What must a city show to deny a CUP — and where do applicants actually lose?
Two things, in order: a legally sufficient reason, and a factual basis in the record for it.
The Supreme Court laid out the framework in RDNT, LLC v. City of Bloomington, 861 N.W.2d 71 (Minn. 2015): “There are two steps in determining whether a city’s denial was unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious. First, we must determine if the reasons given by the city were legally sufficient. Second, if the reasons given are legally sufficient, we must determine if the reasons had a factual basis in the record.” Id. at 75–76 (citing C.R. Invs., Inc. v. Village of Shoreview, 304 N.W.2d 320, 325 (Minn. 1981)).
The burden belongs to the applicant, and it belongs there because the statute puts it there. Section 462.3595, subd. 1, provides that conditional uses “may be approved by the governing body or other designated authority by a showing by the applicant that the standards and criteria stated in the ordinance will be satisfied.” RDNT treated that as dispositive: “Thus, the burden was on RDNT to show that it could satisfy the standards specified by ordinance.” 861 N.W.2d at 78.
Carrying that burden is supposed to end the matter:
If a conditional use permit applicant demonstrates to the governing body that imposing a reasonable condition would eliminate any conflict with the ordinance’s standards and criteria, it follows that the governing body’s subsequent denial would be arbitrary.
Id. (citing Zylka v. City of Crystal, 283 Minn. 192, 196, 167 N.W.2d 45, 49 (1969), for the proposition that “[a] denial would be arbitrary … if it was established that all of the standards specified by the ordinance as a condition to granting the permit have been met”).
Applicants lose on the evidence, and RDNT is the cautionary tale. The city denied a senior-housing expansion on traffic grounds even though its own engineer conceded the streets were not at capacity, and the Supreme Court affirmed the denial. Reviewing courts do not weigh competing experts; the function is “not to weigh the evidence, but to review the record to determine whether there was legal evidence to support the zoning authority’s decision.” Id. at 76 (quoting Barton Contracting Co. v. City of Afton, 268 N.W.2d 712, 718 (Minn. 1978)). The city had traffic studies, engineer testimony, and specific neighbor accounts of speeding and crosswalk violations, and that was enough. The opinion’s own formulation is the sentence to remember: “[t]he fact that a street could physically handle more traffic does not determine whether the neighborhood or the public could handle more traffic.” Id. at 77.
So the case is won at the hearing, not on appeal. Generalized neighborhood grumbling will not sustain a denial. Specific neighborhood testimony, corroborated by a study, will, and I build applicant records on the assumption that the other side is gathering exactly that.
Here is the rule cities get backwards most often: a vague ordinance standard hurts the city. A clause like “the proposed use will not be injurious to the surrounding neighborhood or otherwise harm the public health, safety and welfare” is legally sufficient — a city may deny on that ground. But RDNT then pulled a 1973 rule off the shelf that cuts hard the other way: “the ‘absence of more express standards makes denial of a special-use permit more, not less, vulnerable to a finding of arbitrariness.’” 861 N.W.2d at 76 (quoting Hay v. Township of Grow, 296 Minn. 1, 6, 206 N.W.2d 19, 22–23 (1973)). The court’s own conclusion followed immediately: the ordinance was legally sufficient, “but [we] will examine the factual basis for the City’s findings more closely than we would under a less subjective standard.” Id. A council that leans on a catch-all welfare clause has just bought itself heightened factual scrutiny. A council that names the specific criterion the application fails is standing on much firmer ground. When I am on the applicant’s side I want the vague clause in the record; when I advise a city, I want the specific one.
Write the reasons down, at the time
This is where local bodies lose cases they should win.
Honn’s fifth procedural directive: “The municipal body need not necessarily prepare formal findings of fact, but it must, at a minimum, have the reasons for its decision recorded or reduced to writing and in more than just a conclusory fashion. By failing to do so, it runs the risk of not having its decision sustained.” 313 N.W.2d at 416. The court had already quoted Zylka for the blunter version: “the failure of the council to record any legally sufficient basis for its determination at the time it acted made a prima facie showing of arbitrariness inevitable.” Id. (quoting Zylka, 283 Minn. at 198, 167 N.W.2d at 50).
A conclusory record cannot be repaired later. In Earthburners, Inc. v. County of Carlton, 513 N.W.2d 460 (Minn. 1994), a county board denied a CUP on one stated ground — “public testimony presented in opposition.” The Supreme Court found the record wholly inadequate and directed that on remand “the board must articulate the reasons for its ultimate decision, with specific reference to relevant provisions of its zoning ordinance,” and that if it denies, it “must articulate the board’s specific basis for the denial, i.e., an explanation of the applicant’s failure to satisfy the ordinance criteria.” Id. at 463. The court added that it has “been reluctant to allow local boards an opportunity after the fact to substantiate or justify earlier decisions.” Id. Reluctant is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Part of this is now codified for cities. Under Minn. Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(c), a multimember governing body that denies a request “must state the reasons for denial on the record and provide the applicant in writing a statement of the reasons for the denial,” adopted no later than the next meeting and in any event “before the expiration of the time allowed for making a decision,” and it “must be consistent with the reasons stated in the record at the time of the denial.”
Silence is a grant
Not “deemed submitted,” not “subject to further action” — approved.
Minn. Stat. § 15.99, subd. 2(a):
[A]n agency must approve or deny within 60 days a written request relating to zoning, septic systems, watershed district review, soil and water conservation district review, or expansion of the metropolitan urban service area for a permit, license, or other governmental approval of an action. Failure of an agency to deny a request within 60 days is approval of the request. If an agency denies the request, it must state in writing the reasons for the denial at the time that it denies the request.
Three features of the section repay close attention.
“Relating to zoning” is broad — broader than either side usually assumes. In 500, LLC v. City of Minneapolis, 837 N.W.2d 287 (Minn. 2013), the Supreme Court held that an application to a heritage preservation commission for a certificate of appropriateness qualified. The phrase “a written request relating to zoning” is unambiguous and “refers to a written request that has a connection, association, or logical relationship to the regulation of building development or the uses of property.” Id. at 291. The court refused the city’s attempt to confine the section to requests “explicitly authorized by an applicable zoning ordinance or statute,” because that would add words to an unambiguous statute. Id.
A failed vote is a denial only if the “no” votes explain themselves. Section 15.99, subd. 2(b): “When a vote on a resolution or properly made motion to approve a request fails for any reason, the failure shall constitute a denial of the request provided that those voting against the motion state on the record the reasons why they oppose the request.” A silent 3–3 tie is not a denial. Let the 60 days run out behind it and the request is approved by operation of law. The same paragraph adds that a denial by failed motion “does not preclude an immediate submission of a same or similar request.”
An extension has to be taken before the clock expires. Subdivision 3(f) lets the agency extend “before the end of the initial 60-day period by providing written notice of the extension to the applicant,” and the notice “must state the reasons for the extension and its anticipated length, which may not exceed 60 days unless approved by the applicant.” An extension announced on day 62 is not an extension; it is a concession. The applicant may also request an extension in writing under subdivision 3(g).
Two mechanics decide more of these disputes than the headline rule does. The 60 days start on receipt of “a written request containing all information required by law or by a previously adopted rule, ordinance, or policy of the agency, including the applicable application fee,” and where the submission is incomplete, “the 60-day limit starts over only if the agency sends written notice within 15 business days of receipt of the request telling the requester what information is missing.” Minn. Stat. § 15.99, subd. 3(a). And an approval with conditions is a timely response: subdivision 3(c) provides that the agency meets the deadline if it can document that the response was sent within 60 days, and a failure to satisfy conditions “may be a basis to revoke or rescind the approval … and will not give rise to a claim that the 60-day limit was not met.”
The section carries its own carve-outs, too. Subdivision 2(a) opens “[e]xcept as otherwise provided in this section, section 462.358, subdivision 3b, or 473.175, or chapter 505,” so subdivision review, Metropolitan Council review, and plats run on their own timelines. Subdivision 3(d) and (e) extend the deadline where another statute, federal law, or a court order requires a prior process, or where prior approval from a state or federal agency is needed.
The forum trap: who said no decides where you file
This is the trap in the whole area, and the answer turns on who said no, not on what they said.
For a city or town, Minn. Stat. § 462.361, subd. 1, provides that any person aggrieved by an ordinance, rule, decision, or order of a governing body or board of adjustments and appeals “may have such ordinance, rule, regulation, decision or order, reviewed by an appropriate remedy in the district court.” Honn worked out what “appropriate remedy” means: declaratory judgment for a rezoning, because certiorari is not appropriate for legislative acts, with mandamus and, for a narrow quasi-judicial legal question, certiorari available in the right case. 313 N.W.2d at 414, 416.
For a county board of adjustment, Minn. Stat. § 394.27, subd. 9, is explicit and carries a deadline the municipal statute does not: decisions on variances and administrative appeals “shall be final except that any aggrieved person or persons … shall have the right to appeal within 30 days, after receipt of notice of the decision, to the district court in the county in which the land is located on questions of law and fact.”
For a county board of commissioners deciding a conditional use permit, the answer changes again — certiorari to the Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court explained why in a footnote worth reading twice:
The general rule adopted by this court in Honn is that even quasi-judicial zoning actions should be reviewed in district court, not by certiorari review in the court of appeals. This case falls, however, within a narrow exception to that general rule for decisions by county boards. This exception exists because the legislature has not provided for judicial review of zoning decisions of county boards in the district court as it has for zoning decisions of cities, towns and even county boards of adjustment.
Interstate Power Co. v. Nobles County Board of Commissioners, 617 N.W.2d 566, 574 n.5 (Minn. 2000). The footnote lines up § 462.361, subd. 1, and § 462.352, subd. 11 (defining “governing body” as only a city council or town board), and § 394.27, subd. 9, against § 394.301, which authorizes county CUP proceedings and supplies no district court review — and corrects an earlier statement in In re Livingood as “overly broad.”
Certiorari forgives nothing. Minn. Stat. § 606.01: “No writ of certiorari shall be issued, to correct any proceeding, unless such writ shall be issued within 60 days after the party applying for such writ shall have received due notice of the proceeding sought to be reviewed thereby. The party shall apply to the court of appeals for the writ.” Miss that window on a county CUP denial and there is no district court fallback waiting, because “[d]istrict courts do not have subject-matter jurisdiction over claims that must be resolved in a certiorari appeal.” Zweber v. Credit River Township, 882 N.W.2d 605, 609 (Minn. 2016).
Two refinements from Zweber are worth carrying into any complaint. Legislative decisions — those of broad applicability that “affect the rights of the public generally” — can be reviewed by filing a summons and complaint in district court. Id. And derivative constitutional claims are not automatically swallowed by the certiorari rule: “certiorari review is exclusive when a claim requires an inquiry into the validity of a quasi-judicial decision,” but claims that do not require the district court to examine the validity of the decision — a takings claim seeking only damages, an equal protection claim spanning years of conduct — may proceed in district court. Id. at 611. And on certiorari the Court of Appeals “cannot weigh evidence as a trier of fact.” Id. at 612.
A claim that the agency blew the 60-day deadline goes to district court no matter who the agency was. The Supreme Court’s reasoning is clean: a § 15.99 claim “is not a challenge to a decision — quasi-judicial or otherwise. Rather, it is a challenge to a city’s failure to render a decision, which necessarily provides no decision for the court of appeals to review by writ of certiorari.” 500, LLC, 837 N.W.2d at 289 n.2.
One defense to plan around before filing anything: § 462.361, subd. 2, lets a municipality raise failure to exhaust local procedures, and if the court so finds “it shall require the complaining party to pursue those remedies unless it finds that the use of such remedies would serve no useful purpose under the circumstances of the case.”
What you actually win when you win
The formulation courts apply is four-part:
[W]hether the municipality “was within its jurisdiction, was not mistaken as to the applicable law, and did not act arbitrarily, oppressively, or unreasonably, and to determine whether the evidence could reasonably support or justify the determination.”
Krummenacher, 783 N.W.2d at 727 (quoting In re Stadsvold, 754 N.W.2d 323, 332 (Minn. 2008)). Municipalities hold “broad discretionary power” in deciding whether to grant or deny a variance. Id. (citing VanLandschoot v. City of Mendota Heights, 336 N.W.2d 503, 508 (Minn. 1983)).
The remedy is where client expectations break, and I set them early:
In cases where a variance has been denied, the general rule is that “[i]f the zoning authority’s decision is arbitrary and capricious, the standard remedy is that the court orders the permit to be issued.” But there is an exception to this general rule “when the zoning authority’s decision is premature and not necessarily arbitrary.”
Id. at 732–33 (quoting Stadsvold, 754 N.W.2d at 332, 333). Where the board applied the wrong legal standard, the usual disposition is a remand for reconsideration under the right one — which is exactly what happened in Krummenacher, in Stadsvold, and in Earthburners. An applicant who wins on “you used the wrong test” wins a second hearing. An applicant who wins on “you had no factual basis at all” is in a far stronger position to have the permit ordered. Those are two different victories and they are worth two different amounts of money.
Counties, in three differences
The substantive variance standard is now identical. The 2011 act rewrote § 394.27, subd. 7, in parallel with § 462.357, subd. 6, replacing the old “practical difficulties or particular hardship” framework — the one the Supreme Court parsed in Stadsvold, distinguishing a less rigorous “practical difficulties” test for area variances from a more rigorous “particular hardship” test for use variances — with the same three-element practical-difficulties definition that governs cities. The county board of adjustment holds “the exclusive power to order the issuance of variances,” § 394.27, subd. 7, and labors under the same rough-proportionality limit on conditions.
The procedural rules are tighter on paper. Section 394.27, subd. 6, requires that “[t]he reasons for the board’s decision shall be stated in writing,” and provides that an appeal from an administrative official’s determination “stays all proceedings in furtherance of the action appealed from” unless the board certifies imminent peril to life or property. Subdivision 8 requires a certified copy of any board order — on an appeal or a variance — to be recorded with the county recorder or registrar of titles, with the legal description.
The forum and the deadline differ, as set out above: a 30-day district court appeal from a board of adjustment under subdivision 9, but certiorari to the Court of Appeals within 60 days under § 606.01 for a county board’s CUP decision. Count the days from the right trigger, under the right statute, for the right body. In this corner of the law the wrong forum kills a case the wrong argument would have survived.
For neighbors sitting on the other side of the table, every rule above runs in reverse. A variance granted on a record that never addresses uniqueness, or a CUP approved without findings tied to the ordinance criteria, is vulnerable, and I have used both defects. Related issues turn up in easement and access disputes, in special assessment appeals under chapter 429 when a municipal improvement follows the approval, in property tax appeals under chapter 278 when a use restriction moves value, and in claims against a city where notice and immunity rules apply.
Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota property owners, applicants, and neighboring landowners in variance and conditional use permit proceedings before city councils, boards of appeals and adjustment, planning commissions, and county boards, and in the judicial review that follows — declaratory judgment actions under Minn. Stat. § 462.361, district court appeals under § 394.27, subd. 9, certiorari petitions in the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and claims under the 60-day rule of Minn. Stat. § 15.99. We build the hearing record with the appeal in mind, because in land use practice the record made at the council table is usually the only record there will ever be. Call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 462.357, subd. 6(2) (municipal variances — threshold requirements of harmony with the ordinance and consistency with the comprehensive plan; three-element “practical difficulties” definition; “[e]conomic considerations alone”; solar-access inclusion; mandatory earth-sheltered variance; prohibition on use variances; temporary two-family use; conditions must be “directly related to and must bear a rough proportionality to the impact created by the variance”); § 462.352, subd. 11 (definition of “governing body”); § 462.3595, subd. 1 (applicant’s burden to show ordinance standards satisfied), subd. 3 (duration), subd. 4 (recording of CUP with legal description); § 462.361, subd. 1 (district court review by appropriate remedy), subd. 2 (exhaustion defense); § 394.27, subd. 5 (board of adjustment authority), subd. 6 (written reasons; stay on appeal), subd. 7 (county variances; exclusive power; identical practical-difficulties definition; rough proportionality), subd. 8 (recording of orders), subd. 9 (30-day appeal to district court on questions of law and fact); § 394.301, subds. 1–2, 4 (county CUPs; applicant’s showing; conditions; recording); § 15.99, subd. 1(b)–(d) (definitions of agency, request, applicant), subd. 2(a) (60-day deadline; failure to deny is approval; written reasons at time of denial), subd. 2(b) (failed motion as denial only with reasons stated on the record), subd. 2(c) (multimember body’s written statement of reasons), subd. 3(a) (start of the clock; application fee; 15-business-day incompleteness notice), subd. 3(c) (approval with conditions; documented timely response), subd. 3(d)–(e) (extensions for required prior processes and approvals), subd. 3(f)–(g) (agency extension before the end of the initial 60 days, capped at 60 days absent applicant approval; applicant-requested extension); § 606.01 (60-day certiorari deadline; application to the Court of Appeals), all at revisor.mn.gov. Act of May 5, 2011, ch. 19, §§ 1–2 (H.F. 52), 2011 Minn. Laws (amending Minn. Stat. 2010, §§ 394.27, subd. 7, and 462.357, subd. 6; deleting “undue hardship” and “hardship,” inserting “practical difficulties,” and replacing the prior conditions language with the rough-proportionality sentence; effective the day following final enactment; signed May 5, 2011), at revisor.mn.gov/laws/2011/0/19. Honn v. City of Coon Rapids, 313 N.W.2d 409, 414, 416–17 (Minn. 1981) (remedies for review under § 462.361; requirement that reasons be recorded in more than conclusory fashion; quoting Zylka v. City of Crystal, 283 Minn. 192, 198, 167 N.W.2d 45, 50 (1969), on prima facie arbitrariness; legislative versus quasi-judicial review; zoning authority “less circumscribed” on variances and special use permits than on rezoning). Krummenacher v. City of Minnetonka, 783 N.W.2d 721, 727, 732–33 (Minn. 2010) (standard of review, quoting In re Stadsvold, 754 N.W.2d 323, 332 (Minn. 2008); “broad discretionary power,” citing VanLandschoot v. City of Mendota Heights, 336 N.W.2d 503, 508 (Minn. 1983); rejection of the Rowell “reasonable manner” standard under the pre-2011 statute; remedy and remand). RDNT, LLC v. City of Bloomington, 861 N.W.2d 71, 75–78 (Minn. 2015) (two-step CUP review, citing C.R. Investments, Inc. v. Village of Shoreview, 304 N.W.2d 320, 325 (Minn. 1981); vaguer standards make denial “more, not less, vulnerable,” quoting Hay v. Township of Grow, 296 Minn. 1, 6, 206 N.W.2d 19, 22–23 (1973); courts do not weigh the evidence, quoting Barton Contracting Co. v. City of Afton, 268 N.W.2d 712, 718 (Minn. 1978); capacity versus livability; applicant’s burden under § 462.3595 and Zylka on arbitrary denial). Earthburners, Inc. v. County of Carlton, 513 N.W.2d 460, 463 (Minn. 1994) (inadequate record; remand requiring reasons with specific reference to ordinance provisions; reluctance to permit after-the-fact justification). Interstate Power Co. v. Nobles County Board of Commissioners, 617 N.W.2d 566, 574 & n.5 (Minn. 2000) (legislative versus quasi-judicial acts; county board CUP decisions reviewable only by certiorari because no statute provides district court review). 500, LLC v. City of Minneapolis, 837 N.W.2d 287, 289 n.2, 291 (Minn. 2013) (“relating to zoning” construed broadly; § 15.99 claims belong in district court). Zweber v. Credit River Township, 882 N.W.2d 605, 609, 611–12 (Minn. 2016) (certiorari exclusive where a claim requires inquiry into the validity of a quasi-judicial decision; legislative decisions reviewable by summons and complaint; appellate court cannot weigh evidence). Case texts read at static.case.law (Caselaw Access Project). This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no particular outcome is promised or implied.