Dawson v. Loudoun County Board of Supervisors

59 Va. Cir. 517, 2001 Va. Cir. LEXIS 506
CourtVirginia Circuit Court
DecidedOctober 22, 2001
DocketCase No. (Chancery) 20768
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 59 Va. Cir. 517 (Dawson v. Loudoun County Board of Supervisors) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Virginia Circuit Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dawson v. Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, 59 Va. Cir. 517, 2001 Va. Cir. LEXIS 506 (Va. Super. Ct. 2001).

Opinion

BY JUDGE THOMAS D. HORNE

This case arises out of a rezoning request submitted by Dawson, L.C., to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors. Dawson, L.C., is the contract purchaser of225 acres of land zoned A-3 (agricultural residential) located on the east side of Virginia State Route 659 in Mercer Magisterial District of Loudoun County, Virginia. The existing A-3 zoning would permit agricultural uses and residential development using private well and septic drainfield facilities constructed in accordance with county and state standards at a density of up to one dwelling unit per three acres.

[518]*518On January 31, 2000, the County of Loudoun accepted a request submitted by Dawson, L.C., to rezone the property to R-4 (residential). Were the property to be rezoned to the R-4 district, the applicant would be permitted to build up to 447 residential units on the property, including 28 “affordable housing” units. The Board of Supervisors rejected the rezoning request, and this action for declaratory and other relief followed.

Complainants allege that the existing A-3 zoning as applied to their property is unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious and bears no reasonable relationship to the public health, safety, and welfare. Furthermore, they contend that the denial of the rezoning application violates their rights to equal protection and substantive due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The bill of complaint represents that the County has elevated the comprehensive plan to the status of a zoning ordinance. Thus, by relying upon the plan, rather than the provisions of a duly adopted zoning ordinance, the Board has attempted to exact proffers, impact fees, and public facilities not provided for by ordinance and that are ultra vires, illegal, arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, discriminatory, exclusionary, and confiscatory. As part of the rezoning process, complainants challenge the County’s requirement that they make cash contributions generated by public demand and not by uses proposed by the complainants as part of the rezoning.

Although the complainants have set forth a count alleging a violation of the Federal Fan Housing Act, they have elected to nonsuit that claim.

Respondents have filed a demurrer to the seven-count bill of complaint. In evaluating the demurrer, the Court is guided by the directive that it must consider only those facts that are set forth in the bill of complaint and that are alleged by inference or implication. The instant case presents similar issues to those reviewed by the Court in Gum Springs, L.C. v. Loudoun County Supervisors, Chancery No. 20677 (Circuit Court of Loudoun County, July 27, 2001). Where applicable, portions of that decision will be incorporated in the instant letter opinion.

In summary, the complainants suggest that the demand for housing, existence of available facilities, changes in zoning of surrounding parcels, and disparate treatment with other rezoning requests make their request one subject to judicial review. Upon such review, it is their contention that the court will find the existing zoning of the parcel bears no reasonable [519]*519relationship to the public’s health, safety, and welfare and that the actions of the board were arbitrary and capricious. Moreover, they assert they are entitled to independent relief for the Board’s deprivation of rights guaranteed them under the Constitution of the United States.

In his concurring opinion in Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562 (2000), Justice Breyer noted that the presence of a finding of vindictiveness and ill will in that case was “sufficient to minimize any concern about transforming run-of-the-mill zoning cases into cases of constitutional right.” Id. at 566. The present pleadings, while they present a case for judicial review of an exercise of the police power by the Board, do not elevate these proceedings to one in which recovery may be had predicated upon a purposeful deprivation of due process and equal protection. Do the instant pleadings justify recovery pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983,1988? As pleaded they do not. Need this Court explore whether the Board has imposed conditions to approval of the rezoning that are lacking in proportionality and relationship to the request? Based upon the admitted voluntary nature of the proffers, it need not.

The Court will address individually each of the counts of the bill.

County of Loudoun as a Party

The Court has determined that the Bill of Complaint states sufficient facts to permit an evidentiary hearing of the matter of the rezoning. As to the remaining matters complained of, the Court has determined those counts, as pleaded, to be lacking in legal merit. The General Assembly has provided that:

[ejvery action contesting a decision of the local governing body adopting or failing to adopt a proposed zoning ordinance or amendment thereto or granting or failing to grant a special exception shall be filed within thirty days of the decision with the circuit court having jurisdiction of the land affected by the decision. However, nothing in this subsection shall be construed to create any new right to contest the action of a local governing body.

Va. Code Ann. § 15.2-2285(F) (Michie 1997) (emphasis added).

The governing body of the County of Loudoun is the Board of Supervisors. Accordingly, the demurrer will be sustained as to the County of Loudoun.

[520]*520Count I: Violation of Virginia Law

In his argument, counsel for the complainants dramatically demonstrated the position of his clients by drawing a single red line on a piece of paper. He noted that this line represented the arbitrary line that the Board had drawn upon the map of Loudoun County as a means of limiting growth. He suggests that his client’s property falls on the side that would wrongfully subject him to an existing zoning that has, by reason of changed circumstances and public demand for housing, been rendered unreasonable. Such a line, he suggested, is the product of planning concepts not incorporated into zoning laws.

Thus, in denying the rezoning, they suggest the Board acted arbitrarily in refusing to unburden the complainants from the application of zoning restrictions that no longer bear any relationship to the health, safety, and welfare of the community and are incongruous with the rezoning of surrounding properties. To create what the complainants’ counsel describes as a “Maginot line” is, as their argument continues, to apply a de facto moratorium upon development in the County despite a demand for homes and of available resources in the area to support residential growth. Where resources are not already in place, they contend that the voluntary proffers they have made adequately fill the void. This moratorium, identified as the “Smart Growth Moratorium,” is purportedly based upon a report entitled “A Smart Growth Strategy for Loudoun County” dated October 20,1999.

It is alleged that, in establishing such a moratorium within the designated area, it was the intent of the Board of Supervisors to.

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Related

Wright v. Eli Lilly & Co.
66 Va. Cir. 195 (Portsmouth County Circuit Court, 2004)
Commonwealth v. Waddler
65 Va. Cir. 418 (Portsmouth County Circuit Court, 2004)
In re Zoning Ordinance Amendments
67 Va. Cir. 462 (Loudoun County Circuit Court, 2003)

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Bluebook (online)
59 Va. Cir. 517, 2001 Va. Cir. LEXIS 506, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dawson-v-loudoun-county-board-of-supervisors-vacc-2001.