The ruling by District Court Judge Sheridan Hawley does not change any of the decisions made by the BOA at a meeting on March 14, 2013, during which the board voted to deny two variance requests, while approving five others.  Earlier, the Palmer Township Board had voted unanimously to send a negative recommendation to the BOA regarding all of the variance requests that had been presented to them at a regular township meeting.

 

The property in Clear Lake is a peninsula which has Briggs Lake to the west and Briggs Creek to the north and south. Chris Perkins is the vendee of a contract for deed for real property at that site, and he and his family reside in a house on the property.  The property owners are Thomas and Kathleen Frenn.

 

On Jan. 23, 2013, Perkins had applied for eight variances with the Sherburne County Planning and Zoning Administration. The BOA then issued a notice of a public hearing on the variances, which included plans involving a driveway, building expansion and septic system updates, which was held on March 16, 2013 at 6:00 p.m., prior to the BOA meeting to address the variance requests.

 

Once the BOA had acted, the Sherburne County Board of Commissioners, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Palmer Township (the appellants in the case) all jointly appealed the decision to grant five of the seven variances applied for. Perkins then filed a cross-motion asking that the BOA decision to deny two of his variance requests be reversed through summary judgment by the court.

 

In the Conclusions of Law in the order filed in Sherburne County, Judge Hawley included the following: “The Court denies all of the appellant’s motions.

 

Appellants have not met their burden of demonstrating the BOA’s variance grants were unreasonable; nor has Perkins met his lesser burden of showing the two variance denials were unreasonable.  Therefore, the BOA’s variance determinations are upheld.”