## Facts

- Mendota Golf, LLP owned a 17.5-acre parcel in the City of Mendota Heights that had operated as a nine-hole par-3 golf course since the early 1960s.
- The surrounding area was predominantly residential.
- When Mendota Golf acquired the parcel in 1995, the zoning ordinance classified it as R-1 One-Family Residential, permitting single-family detached dwellings and treating golf courses as a conditional use.
- The city’s comprehensive plan designated the parcel as “Golf Course (GC),” while adjacent lands were guided as low-density residential.
- A 1995 amendment to the Metropolitan Land Planning Act required that if a comprehensive plan conflicts with a zoning ordinance, the zoning ordinance must be brought into conformance with the plan through the required review and amendment process.
- In 2003, Mendota Golf sought to sell the property for single-family residential development and requested that the city amend the comprehensive plan designation from GC to low-density residential.
- The city council denied the requested comprehensive plan amendment, citing planning and public-welfare considerations.

## Issues

1. Whether mandamus could compel the city to amend its comprehensive plan to redesignate the parcel for residential development based on an asserted “clear legal duty.”
2. Whether the comprehensive plan’s GC designation conflicted with the R-1 zoning designation, and what the statute required as a remedy.
3. Whether the city’s denial of the comprehensive plan amendment was arbitrary or lacked a rational basis.

## Decision

- The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the issuance of mandamus compelling adoption of the requested comprehensive plan amendment.
- The court held the city had no clear legal duty to approve Mendota Golf’s proposed plan amendment, and mandamus could not control a discretionary legislative decision.
- The court held the city had a rational basis to deny the requested amendment.
- The court held the comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance conflicted as applied to the parcel and that the conflict had not been reconciled as required by statute.
- The court remanded for the district court to order the city to bring the comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance into conformance, without dictating the specific legislative outcome.

## Legal Principles

- Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy available only to compel performance of a clear, positive, ministerial legal duty; it does not lie to direct discretionary legislative or policy choices.
- Comprehensive planning and plan amendments are legislative determinations; a landowner is not entitled to a particular plan designation absent a clear statutory command.
- Under Minn. Stat. § 473.858, subd. 1, when a municipality’s comprehensive plan conflicts with its zoning ordinance, the municipality must reconcile the inconsistency through the required planning processes; the statute requires consistency but does not mandate that the municipality adopt a specific change requested by a private party.
- A city’s denial of a comprehensive plan amendment will be upheld if supported by a rational basis grounded in planning objectives.

## Conclusion

The court refused to use mandamus to force a comprehensive plan redesignation because the city’s choice was discretionary and rationally supported, but it enforced the statutory requirement that the city eliminate the unresolved conflict between its comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance for the property.


Mendota Golf, LLP v. City of Mendota Heights, 708 N.W.2d 162 (Minn. 2006)