In Re Appeal of Albert

¶ 1. March 14, 2008. This appeal and cross-appeal involve developer’s proposed development of approximately thirty-three acres in Shelburne. Developer received approval from the Town of Shelburne Planning Commission for the development of single-family lots and multi-family units. Thereafter, landowners appealed the planning commission’s decision to the Environmental Court. The Environmental Court granted approval for the development of the multi-family units but denied approval for development of the single-family lots. Developer appeals the Environmental Court’s denial of approval for development of the single-family lots arguing, inter alia, that landowners lacked standing to appeal the planning commission’s decision to the Environmental Court. Landowners cross-appeal, challenging the Environmental Court’s approval of the multi-family-unit development. Because we agree that landowners lacked standing to appeal the planning commission’s decision to the Environmental Court, we vacate the court’s decision.

¶ 2. The following facts are not contested. Developer seeks to build twenty-five single-family lots and thirty-seven multi-family lots on a 33.71 acre parcel of land in Shelburne. Developer received preliminary approval of its plan to do so from the planning commission on October 10,2002. Developer submitted an application for final approval on March 31, 2003, and the planning commission unanimously approved it on May 8, 2003. One month later, on June 9, 2003, a group of fifteen persons owning land in Shelburne filed a notice with the planning commission stating that they were appealing the planning commission’s decision to the Environmental Court. Attached to the notice of appeal was a petition signed by the landowners stating “that the relief requested by [developer] for approval of a planned residential development ... if granted, will not be in accord with the policies, purposes, or terms of the plan or bylaws of the Town of Shelburne.” The planning commission took no action with regards to the merits of the dispute between landowners and developer upon receipt of landowners’ petition and notice. Indeed, landowners appealed the planning commission’s decision to the Environmental Court that very same day.

¶ 3. Developer moved to dismiss landowners’ appeal for their failure to comply with the requirements of 24V.S.A. § 4464, a statute governing appeals from municipal decisions. At that time, §4464 required that litigants be “interested persons” in order to have standing to appeal the decisions of administrative officers to municipal boards like planning commissions. At that time, § 4464 provided, in relevant part:

(a) An interested person may appeal any decision or act taken ... in any municipality ...

(b) For the purposes of this chapter, an interested person means any one of the following:

(4) Any ten persons owning real property within a municipality... who, by signed petition to *638the board of adjustment or the development review board of a municipality, the plan or a bylaw of which is at issue in any appeal brought under this title, allege that any relief requested by a person under this title, if granted, will not be in accord with the policies, purposes or terms of the plan or bylaw of that municipality.1

¶ 4. The standing requirement contained in pre-amendment § 4464(b) also applied to appeals to the Environmental Court from planning commissions through pre-amendment § 4471(a). See 24 V.S.A. § 4471(a) (“An interested person may appeal a decision of a board of adjustment, a planning commission, or a development review board to the environmental court.”).2 Developer argued that landowners were not interested persons within the meaning of pre-amendment § 4464(b)(4), and therefore lacked standing to appeal to the Environmental Court, because they submitted a petition to the planning commission after the planning commission granted final plan approval for the proposal. In addition, developer argued, as it does here, that the statute required landowners to have submitted a petition to the planning commission for consideration before it granted final plan approval. The Environmental Court denied developer’s motion to dismiss, reasoning that “the statute does not . . . require that the parties have participated at the municipal board level.”3 In an order dated August 8, 2005, the Environmental Court granted approval for the development of the thirty-seven multi-family units and denied approval for development of the twenty-five single-family lots. This appeal and cross-appeal followed.

*639¶ 5. According to landowners, we should defer to what they characterize as the Environmental Court’s long-standing interpretation of pre-amendment § 4464’s “interested person” to include persons, like landowners, who file petitions with municipal boards after that body has issued a final decision in a matter. Landowners cite our practice of deferring to agency interpretations of statutes within the area of agency expertise. It is true that “where a statute is silent or ambiguous regarding a particular matter this Court will defer to agency interpretation of a statute within its area of expertise as long as it represents a permissible construction of the statute.” In re Smith, 169 Vt. 162, 169, 730 A.2d 605, 611 (1999). Landowners ask us to extend that principle of deference to the Environmental Court’s construction of pre-amendment § 4464 due to the court’s expertise in environmental matters.

¶ 6. We decline to do so. We defer to agency interpretations of statutes that the Legislature has entrusted them to administer as much out of a concern for the proper separation of powers as in consideration of agency expertise. See Town of Victory v. State, 2004 VT 110, ¶ 16, 177 Vt. 383, 865 A.2d 373 (explaining that “[t]o preserve the appropriate separation of judicial and executive powers, we presume that judicial review of administrative decisions is deferential”). Because the Environmental Court is a part of the judicial branch, there is no separation-of-powers imperative for deferential review here. Moreover, whatever deference the Environmental Court is owed in the area of substantive environmental law does not apply to its construction of statutes governing general principles of law such as party standing. Cf. Devers-Scott v. Office of Prof'l Regulation, 2007 VT 4, ¶ 9, 181 Vt. 248, 918 A.2d 230 (“Questions of law that can be answered with traditional tools of statutory construction are within the special expertise of courts, not agencies, and are therefore answered by the court de novo.” (citation omitted)).

¶ 7. We have recently ruled that the proper construction of a statute governing appeals of municipal decisions to the Environmental Court is a question of law subject to nondeferential and plenary review on appeal. See In re Carroll, 2007 VT 19, ¶ 9, 181 Vt. 383, 925 A.2d 990 (applying de novo review and reversing the Environmental Court’s dismissal of the landowner’s appeal for lack of standing where standing hinged on the proper construction of the words “municipal regulatory proceeding” in post-amendment § 4471(a)). We apply the same standard of review here.

¶ 8. We begin by noting that although the general rule is that statutes regulating appeal rights are remedial in nature and therefore liberally construed in favor of persons exercising those rights, Casella Constr., Inc. v. Dep’t of Taxes, 2005 VT 18, ¶ 5, 178 Vt. 61, 869 A.2d 157, “our ultimate goal is to give effect to the intent of the Legislature.” In re Milton Arrowhead Mountain, 169 Vt. 531, 533, 726 A.2d 54, 56 (1999) (mem.). We have recently explained that we “strictly adhere” to the standing requirements that the Legislature set forth in pre-amendment § 4464(b). In re Gulli, 174 Vt. 580, 582 n*, 816 A.2d 485, 488 n* (2002) (mem.); see also Garzo v. Stowe Bd. of Adjustment, 144 Vt. 298, 302, 476 A.2d 125, 127 (1984) (Court may not judicially expand class of persons entitled to review in zoning cases governed by pre-amendment § 4464(b)).

¶ 9. Our decisions in Kalakowski v. John A. Russell Corp., 137 Vt. 219, 401 A.2d 906 (1979), and In re Garen, 174 Vt. 151, 807 A.2d 448 (2002), do not stand for a contrary proposition. In neither case did we apply the general rule that appeal rights are liberally construed, let alone apply that rule in such a way as to override our primary goal of effectuating the intent of the Legislature. In Kalakowski, *640we interpreted the standing requirement of pre-amendment § 4464(b)(3). 137 Vt. at 222-23, 401 A.2d at 908-09. Pre-amendment § 4464(b)(3) provided certain persons with standing in zoning appeals as long as they “allege[d] that the decision or act, if confirmed, [would] not be in accord with the policies, purposes or terms of the plan or bylaw of that municipality!’ (Emphasis added.) We held that a group of persons had standing to appeal a zoning board decision under pre-amendment § 4464(b)(3) where their allegation was that “the decision would not be in accord with the [zoning] regulations.” Kalakowski, 137 Vt. at 222, 401 A.2d at 909. We reasoned that the Legislature did not design pre-amendment § 4464(b) to “establish a formula for pleading.” Id. In Garen, we held that intervenors in an appeal before the Environmental Court were entitled to maintain the appeal after the original appellants withdrew their appeal in part because we could “discern nothing in the statutory scheme . . . that appeared] to foreclose intervenors” from doing so. 174 Vt. at 154, 807 A.2d at 450. By contrast, it is precisely because we do discern something in the statutory scheme that forecloses landowners from maintaining their suit that we hold today that they lack standing to do so.

¶ 10. As noted, it is well settled that our objective in construing a statute is to effectuate the intent of the Legislature. Springfield Terminal Ry. v. Agency of Transp., 174 Vt. 341, 346, 816 A.2d 448, 453 (2002). We presume that the Legislature “intended the plain, ordinary meaning of the [adopted statutory] language,” Town of Hinesburg v. Dunkling, 167 Vt. 514, 525, 711 A.2d 1163, 1169 (1998), and “will enforce the plain meaning of the statutory language where the Legislature’s intent is evident from it.” Carroll, 2007 VT 19, ¶ 9 (citing Wesco, Inc. v. Sorrell, 2004 VT 102, ¶ 14, 177 Vt. 287, 865 A.2d 350). We also presume that the Legislature intended for the statutory language to render results that are not absurd. Craw v. Dist. Ct., 150 Vt. 114, 119, 549 A.2d 1065, 1069 (1988) (“A presumption obtains against a construction that would lead to absurd results.”).

¶ 11. It is clear from the language of pre-amendment § 4464(b)(4) that the Legislature intended to provide standing to appeal zoning decisions only to those landowners who petitioned a planning commission prior to it taking final action in a case. At the time this case arose, pre-amendment § 4464(b)(4) provided standing to certain groups of persons as long as those persons “by signed petition to the [planning commission] of a municipality . . . allege[d] that any relief requested by a person under this title, if granted, will not be in accord with the policies, purposes or terms of the plan or bylaw of that municipality.” The legislative requirement of a “petition” as the requisite filing decides the issue. A petition is “[a] supplication or request to a superior authority,” or “[a] formal document requesting a right or benefit from an authority.” The American Heritage College Dictionary 1022 (3d ed. 2000); see also Black’s Law Dictionary 1182 (8th ed. 2004) (a petition is “[a] formal written request presented to a[n] . . . official body”). The plain and ordinary meaning of “petition” leads to the conclusion that the Legislature intended for the planning commission to retain some power to take action upon receipt of the petition — the power of a “superior authority” to act upon a “supplication or request.” One may not both give the appropriate weight to the Legislature’s word choice and conclude that the Legislature intended for landowners to petition municipal bodies even after those bodies had already exercised their authority without arriving at absurdity. Accordingly, we conclude that, to have had standing to appeal the planning commission’s decision in this case, landowners were required to have petitioned the planning commission before the commission implicitly concluded that *641developer’s plans were in “accord with the policies, purposes or terms of the plan or bylaw of Shelburne”— that is, prior to it granting final plan approval for developer’s proposal.

¶ 12. Our construction also allows for a natural reading of the statutory language requiring that landowners’ petition to the planning commission allege that the “relief requested ... if granted, will not be" in accord with the policy of the municipality. 24 V.S.A. § 4464(b)(4) (emphasis added). Landowners would have us believe that this relief — which they agree is to be granted at some time after the petition is filed — does not refer to relief to be granted by the planning commission, but rather refers to relief to be granted by the Environmental Court or by this Court. Under this construction, the petition would only be alerting the planning commission to a potential problem in a case that was, being on appeal, completely out of its hands. We think it much more sensible to conclude that the Legislature intended for the petition to alert the planning commission to the existence of a dispute as to whether the relief that the planning commission was considering granting was consistent with municipal policy.

¶ 13. Neither does our construction do any violence to the statutory scheme. Landowners observe that post-amendment § 4471(a) explicitly requires interested persons to have participated at the municipal level in order to have standing to appeal municipal decisions to the Environmental Court, see 24V.S.A. § 4471(a) (“An interested person who has participated in a municipal regulatory proceeding authorized under this title may appeal a decision rendered in that proceeding by an appropriate municipal panel to the environmental court.” (emphasis added)), but that pre-amendment § 4471(a) did not explicitly so require. See 24 V.S.A. § 4471(a) (“An interested person may appeal a decision of a . . . planning commission ... to the environmental court.”). Landowners argue that requiring persons to file petitions before planning commissions make final decisions in order to qualify as interested persons under pre-amendment § 4464(b)(4) is tantamount to requiring participation in the proceedings at the municipal level. Landowners claim that the recent addition of the participation requirement proves that the Legislature did not intend to require participation at the municipal level prior to amendment, and that because the predecision filing of a petition constitutes such participation, our construction creates an internal inconsistency between pre-amendment § 4464 and pre-amendment § 4471. We see it differently. It is true that we generally presume that an amendment to a statute was meant to change the law unless circumstances clearly show that only a clarification was intended. State v. Brooks, 2004 VT 88, ¶ 11, 177 Vt. 161, 861 A.2d 1096. Here, the plain, ordinary meaning of the pre-existing statutory term “petition” presents such a circumstance. Furthermore, the language that presupposes the planning commission had not yet acted to grant or deny the pending appeal supports our position that this amendment was a clarification of the statute and was not intended to change its meaning.

¶ 14. The dissent complains that under amended §§ 4465(b)(4) and 4471(a) persons must both participate at the municipal level “through oral or written testimony, evidence or a statement of concern,” § 4471(a), and file a pre-decision petition in order to appeal a municipal board decision to the Environmental Court. The dissent asserts that the statutory sections are therefore in conflict with one another. There is no conflict. To alert the appropriate municipal panel that an “interested person” alleges that the relief requested presents problems with a bylaw or municipal plan pursuant to § 4465(b)(4) introduces the issue to the *642panel. Section 4471(a) provides guidance as to what constitutes participation in the municipal regulatory proceeding — the offering of evidence or a statement of concern related to the subject of the proceeding. Section 4471(a) does not speak of participation after the proceeding. If the interested person has so participated before the municipal panel, they have standing to appeal to the Environmental Court.4

¶ 15. Finally, landowners argue that because of the time and resources they have spent pursuing this appeal, it would be inequitable for us to rule at this juncture that they lacked standing to do so. Their disappointment cannot undermine the plain meaning of statutory language or create jurisdiction where there is none.

¶ 16. We hold that landowners lacked standing to appeal the planning commission’s decision to the Environmental Court, and therefore do not reach the rest of the issues in the appeal and cross-appeal.

The Environmental Court’s August 8, 2005 order is vacated; the decision of the planning commission is reinstated.