## Facts

- Monroe County owned and operated the Greater Rochester International Airport, located largely within the City of Rochester.
- From 1984–1986, the county amended its airport master plan to expand and improve airport facilities, including terminal expansion, apron improvements, parking facilities, and an air-freight facility; the improvements at issue were on airport property within the city.
- In 1987, the county submitted a site-plan application to the city for certain improvements; the city requested additional information, including environmental review compliance.
- The county asserted that, except for a hotel component (treated as outside the dispute), the airport uses were governmental functions and therefore not subject to the city’s site-plan approval and permit requirements.
- The city contended that airport operation and expansion were proprietary and therefore subject to local land-use controls.
- The dispute was submitted on an agreed statement of facts in a special proceeding; the lower courts declared the city’s site-plan and permit requirements inapplicable.

## Issues

1. What legal standard governs when one governmental entity undertakes a land use within another entity’s territorial jurisdiction and the host seeks to enforce its zoning/site-plan regulations.
2. Whether the City of Rochester’s site-plan approval and permit requirements applied to Monroe County’s airport expansion project (excluding the hotel component).

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed the declaration that the city’s site-plan and permit requirements did not apply to the airport expansion at issue.
- The court rejected the governmental/proprietary classification as the controlling method for resolving intergovernmental land-use conflicts.
- The court adopted a “balancing of public interests” test to determine whether the encroaching governmental entity should be immune from the host’s land-use regulation.
- Applying that balancing framework, the court concluded the public interest in the airport expansion outweighed the city’s interest in enforcing its site-plan and permitting scheme for this project.

## Legal Principles

- In intergovernmental zoning conflicts, absent a contrary legislative directive, the encroaching governmental entity is initially subject to the host municipality’s land-use regulations.
- A court may grant immunity after weighing relevant public interests, including:
  - the nature and scope of the governmental instrumentality seeking immunity;
  - the kind of function or land use involved;
  - the extent of the public interest served;
  - the effect local regulation would have on the project; and
  - the impact on legitimate local interests.
- Additional considerations may include statutory authority for the project, feasible alternative locations or methods, and the degree of intergovernmental participation and opportunity for input.
- No single factor is dispositive; the outcome turns on the overall balance of competing public interests in the particular dispute.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed that Rochester could not require site-plan approval and permits for Monroe County’s airport expansion, and it replaced the governmental/proprietary test with a flexible balancing-of-public-interests standard for resolving intergovernmental land-use disputes.


Matter of County of Monroe, 72 N.Y.2d 338 (N.Y. 1988)