Background:

The Land Use Petition Act

The Land Use Petition Act (LUPA) was enacted in 1995 to provide uniform, expedited judicial review of land use decisions made by counties, cities, and unincorporated towns. Land use decisions subject to judicial review under the LUPA are limited to:

applications for project permits or approvals that are required before real property can be improved, developed, modified, sold, transferred, or used;
interpretations regarding the application of specific requirements to specific property; and
enforcement by local jurisdictions of ordinances relating to particular real property.

Land use decisions that do not fall under the LUPA are approvals to use, vacate, or transfer streets, parks and other similar types of public property, approvals for area-wide rezones and annexations, and applications for business licenses. In addition, the LUPA does not apply to land use decisions that are subject to review by legislatively-created quasi-judicial bodies, such as the Shorelines Hearings Board, the Environmental and Land Use Hearings Board, and the Growth Management Hearings Board.

A person seeking review of a land use decision must file a petition in superior court and serve all parties within 21 days of the issuance of the land use decision. The parties must follow certain procedures within specified timeframes that are meant to expedite the judicial process.

"Land use decision" is defined to mean a final determination by a local jurisdiction's governing body or officer with the highest level of authority to make the decision, including those with the authority to hear appeals at the local, non-judicial level.

Generally, the court sets a hearing within a few months of the filing of the petition. The court may affirm or reverse the land use decision or remand it for modification or further proceedings.

Judicial relief may be granted based on any one of the following grounds:

the decision maker followed an unlawful procedure or failed to follow a required procedure;
the land use decision is erroneous in its interpretation or application of the law;
the land use decision is not supported by evidence;
the land use decision is outside the authority or jurisdiction of the decision maker; or
the land use decision violates the petitioner's constitutional rights.

Recent Court Cases Pertinent to LUPA Appeals

In recent years there have been conflicting decisions by the courts of appeal in this state regarding when time limits for the filing of judicial appeals begins to run in cases involving motions for the reconsideration of local administrative decisions.

In Skinner v. Civil Service Commission of the City of Medina, Division I of the Washington State Court of Appeals ruled that where the law allows a local, non-judicial motion for reconsideration of an administrative decision, the time limit for the filing of a judicial appeal runs from the date of the final order on the motion for reconsideration rather than from the date of the original administrative decision. Skinner v. Civil Service Commission of the City of Medina, 146 Wn. App. 171, 188 P 3d (2008). This ruling has been appealed to the Washington State Supreme Court, which has agreed to review the case.

Contrary to the ruling in Skinner, in 2009 Division II of the Washington State Court of Appeals ruled that under LUPA the 21-day limit for filing a judicial appeal begins to run on the date the order is entered on the original, administrative land use decision, regardless of whether a party has filed a local, non-judicial motion for reconsideration. Mellish v. Frog Mountain Pet Care, --- P. 3d ---, 2009 WL 4814955 (2009).