## Facts

- The Village of Logan adopted zoning ordinances designating certain property as R-1 (single-family residential), requiring a special use permit for nonconforming uses.
- The Eastern New Mexico Water Utility Authority (ENMWUA) is a legislatively created state entity authorized to develop and construct a regional water delivery system and granted eminent domain and related powers to acquire property and place water infrastructure.
- ENMWUA acquired Lot 11 in the Village’s South Shore development, located in an R-1 zone.
- ENMWUA initially obtained a Village special use permit for a water intake structure planned to be contained entirely within Lot 11.
- ENMWUA later revised its plans to build a larger intake facility extending beyond Lot 11 onto adjacent reservoir-related lands as part of the broader regional water project.
- The Village asserted the revised project was an industrial facility barred by R-1 zoning absent further local approvals; ENMWUA asserted it was not subject to Village zoning for the intake facility.
- The Village sued in district court to enforce its zoning ordinances against ENMWUA’s planned construction.

## Issues

1. What legal methodology governs a zoning and land-use conflict between a municipality and a legislatively created water utility authority, both political subdivisions of the state.
2. Under that methodology, whether municipal zoning ordinances may restrict ENMWUA’s siting and construction of a regional water intake facility authorized by statute.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment for ENMWUA.
- The court held the “statutory guidance test” is the proper method to resolve land-use conflicts between political subdivisions created and empowered by the Legislature.
- Applying that test, the court concluded the Legislature intended ENMWUA’s statutory mission and powers to prevail over conflicting municipal zoning restrictions as to the intake facility.

## Legal Principles

- When two state political subdivisions’ asserted powers conflict in land use, courts determine priority primarily by statutory interpretation of the entities’ enabling statutes (the statutory guidance test).
- Courts look for legislative direction that the project entity is expressly subject to local regulation, expressly exempt, or otherwise given priority; legislative intent controls.
- Municipal zoning authority, though broad, is statutory and may yield where the Legislature has conferred a more specific, project-focused mandate and powers on another state entity.
- Courts may decline governmental/proprietary classifications, superior-sovereign approaches, or ad hoc balancing where they would substitute judicial policy choices for legislative intent.

## Conclusion

The court held that New Mexico resolves intergovernmental zoning conflicts by examining legislative intent in the parties’ enabling statutes, and that ENMWUA’s specific statutory mandate and infrastructure powers authorized construction of the regional intake facility notwithstanding the Village’s conflicting residential zoning rules.


Vill. of Logan v. E. N.M. Water Util. Auth., 357 P.3d 433 (N.M. Ct. App. 2015)