Fight Between Minnetonka Neighbors Finds Fix at State Capitol

A legal battle between Minnetonka neighbors has prevented builders and residents statewide from securing the formal go-ahead for many home improvement projects. That gridlock, over the past nine months, ended Tuesday with legislation that passed through the State Legislature.

Sen. Gen Olson (R-Minnetrista) crafted the measure, HF 52/SF 13, with input from the League of Minnesota Cities, to restore the ability of Minnesota cities to grant zoning variances to local builders and residents.

In July 2010, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that for residents to receive exceptions to the standard state zoning law, known as a zoning variance, they must prove their properties are unusable without it. This much-narrower interpretation of state law meant fewer cities could grant variances.  That ruling couldn't have come at worse time for builders already hit hard by the dramatic slowdown in construction.

One of those builders was Bob Boyer, who owns Minnetonka’s Boyer Building Corp. Since the legal battle over variances started, neither Boyer's company nor his clients were able get the necessary permits to start work, whether it was to add a deck to a house or renovate a garage.

"Some projects that we would be doing, we won't be doing," Boyer said. He estimated that his business had to scrap and lose $1 million worth of business.

The legal battles began in 2008, when Minnetonka resident Beat Krummenacher took the city to court after it granted his neighbor, JoAnne Liebeler, former host of the PBS-TV remodeling show "Hometime," a zoning variance to remodel a flat-roofed garage on her property. Liebeler applied for and was granted a variance, but Krummenacher appealed the decision to the Planning Commission and City Council, saying the taller structure blocked his view to the east. Both appeals were denied and, in 2009, Liebeler completed the new garage.

Krummenacher challenged the city's decision all the way to the state Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reversed the city's action, overturning a legal standard established more than 20 years earlier. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the Minnetonka for reconsideration using the correct standard to the variance application. The ruling meant every zoning variance in the state had to be determined using the much narrower unusable standard.

The consequences of Krummenacher vs. Minnetonka were immediate and far-reaching, said Julie Wischnack, Minnetonka's Community Development Director.

"There are residents in this community who had wanted to do something and haven't been able to do so," she said. "Some of those people either had to put aside their plans, or revise them into something that wasn't probably the way in which the homeowner wanted it."

In response to the Supreme Court's decision, Minnetonka found a solution for these homeowners—making non-conforming structures fall under an expansion permit rather than a variance, Wischnack said. Liebeler received a retroactive expansion permit to keep her garage project standing.

The city's solution has only added fuel to the fire. According to his attorney, Paul Chamberlain, Krummenacher believed the Minnetonka Planning Commission and City Council circumvented the Supreme Court decision in approving Liebeler permit.

Liebeler choked up when she talks about the continued litigation.

"It should never have gone this far," she said. "I can't tell you how many tears I've cried over this." 

Tom Grundhoefer, an attorney at the League of Minnesota Cities, said the only way to fix this variance problem was to have the State Legislature give local governments greater flexibility to grant variances. Now the legislative fix has come, and insiders expect Gov. Mark Dayton to sign the bill into law. 

As for the garage that started it all, according to his attorney, Krummenacher only wants one thing—"to take out the yoga studio that is above there so that it doesn't blockade the view and make it the size it was before." 

Liebeler is looking for something else.

"I just want peace," she said.