Frito-Lay, Inc. v. Planning and Zoning Commission of the Town of Killingly

Frito-Lay, Inc. (plaintiff) operated a food-processing facility and office in Killingly, Connecticut, in an industrial district. Frito-Lay applied to the planning and zoning commission of the town of Killingly (the commission) (defendant) for a special permit and site-plan approval for the new construction of a wood-chip-burning electric cogeneration plant. The commission held a public hearing for the application on January 14, 1985, in which it took evidence and testimony both for and against the application. The commission declared the public hearing closed at the end of its meeting on January 14 and tabled the application to the commission’s next regular meeting. At the commission’s next regular meeting on February 11, 14 citizens spoke about Frito-Lay’s application during the portion of the meeting allotted for citizen participation. After the citizen-participation portion of the meeting, one of the commissioners questioned Frito-Lay’s engineer based on comments received from citizens even though the public hearing on the application had been closed on January 14. The commission tabled the application to its next hearing. At its next meeting on March 11, nine citizens spoke about Frito-Lay’s application. Because representatives of Frito-Lay had not attended the March 11 meeting due to a death at their plant, the commission held a special meeting on March 26. At the start of the meeting, the commission’s chairman made it clear that that any comments offered during the citizen-participation portion of the meeting would carry no weight with the commission in considering Frito-Lay’s application. Still, 14 citizens spoke on Frito-Lay’s application, mostly opposing it, without objection from Frito-Lay. Frito-Lay indicated that it was relying on the chairman’s comments at the start of the meeting, so Frito-Lay did not respond to the public comments. Subsequently, the commission discussed Frito-Lay’s application and voted to deny it primarily because it found that Frito-Lay’s proposal would not be in harmony with the surrounding area as required by the Killingly zoning ordinance’s standards for site-plan review. Frito-Lay appealed to the superior court. Frito-Lay alleged that the commission acted illegally in that its grounds for denial were not supported by the record. The court rejected Frito-Lay’s claims. Frito-Lay appealed, arguing that the three proceedings after January 14 were illegal and tainted the commission’s ability to render a valid decision.