A decade-plus effort by a sand and gravel company to mine a 537-acre quarry near Eureka is back in St. Louis County court, but its long zoning fight could have repercussions across the region.
Already, St. Charles County has changed its procedures for deciding certain land use questions, adding a new quasi-judicial hearing in between the zoning board review and the County Council decision. It will be used for the first time to help decide whether to allow a controversial trash transfer station near the Family Arena.
The change was triggered by an Eastern District Missouri Court of Appeals decision last year, the latest twist in Winter Brothers Material Company’s long quest to mine a quarry it owns near Eureka for sand and gravel.
“We’re probably the first one who’s changed our ordinances in response to that (Winter Brothers) decision,” said Jennifer George, assistant director of administration in the St. Charles County executive’s office. “The County Council felt this process was important enough to make changes right away.”
Winter Brothers Material Company, which has owned the Meramec River site since the mid-’70s, has been working to win approval to mine it since 2001.
Its latest bid — strongly opposed by residents of a nearby subdivision — was rejected by the St. Louis County Council more than two years ago.
After that, Winter Brothers promised a lawsuit challenging the county’s decision, which it filed in December 2015. After the St. Louis County Circuit Court judge sided with the county, the company appealed.
The April decision by the Eastern District Missouri Court of Appeals caught the eye of municipal and county officials around the region.
It sent the Winter Brothers case back to circuit court, ruling that the lower court should have allowed discovery and witnesses rather than just reviewing the administrative record made during St. Louis County hearings on the controversial zoning.
That’s because, the court decided, the St. Louis County zoning and other hearings didn’t follow certain state administrative rules, which allow for witness cross-examination and other judicial-like proceedings.
As a result, Winter Brothers refiled its case against St. Louis County in June, seeking once more to win the right to mine the Eureka-area quarry. This time, it’s deposing county officials and using discovery to gather evidence.
“It would certainly expedite things if there were a better procedure at the local level,” said Winter Brothers attorney Gregory Hoffmann. “The (appellate) opinion is pretty instructive about what’s supposed to be done, and there was a lot of uncertainty about it previously.”
St. Charles County soon after changed its procedures for issuing special use permits and established a special hearing in between the zoning and County Council level.
Its first use will be in the coming weeks, when a special hearing is held to take evidence and establish a record in a controversial case over a trash transfer station near the Family Arena. The St. Charles County Planning and Zoning Commission voted strongly in November against the proposal from Metro Fill Development LLC to put one on the site.
Holding the hearing should mean that if the developer sues to challenge the county’s final decision, the court will only have to review the administrative record rather than the drawn-out process of discovery, depositions and witness examination.
The special hearings can be waived if both the county and the applicant for the permit agree to skip the step.
The public can attend the special hearing but won’t be able to make comments, George, the St. Charles County official, said . A date hasn’t yet been set for the trash transfer hearing.
St. Louis County hasn’t made similar changes to its procedures yet, said Glenn Powers, the county’s director of operations who was planning director when the Winter Brothers quarry was rejected by the St. Louis County Council.
“But we will be looking at it,” he said.
Many area municipalities are updating their zoning and development codes, said Dan Welsh, an attorney who often represents developers on zoning matters. He expects some to use the process as an opportunity to change procedures on conditional use permits because of the Winter Brothers decision.
From a local government’s standpoint, it makes sense, he said, “so I don’t have to retry everything and spend a bunch of taxpayer dollars on it.”
Personally, he said, he would probably prefer an experienced judge in a trial court over an administrative hearing officer. “I just trust the court system a little bit better,” Welsh said.
Meanwhile, the Winter Brothers case drags on in court. The company argues St. Louis County’s denial of a permit to mine the land constitutes an “illegal taking” of its property by essentially forcing it to leave the land in a natural state.
St. Louis County declined to comment, citing the pending lawsuit.