Heflin v. Caroline County

83 Va. Cir. 507, 2010 Va. Cir. LEXIS 320
CourtCaroline County Circuit Court
DecidedMarch 1, 2010
DocketCase No. CL08-594
StatusPublished

This text of 83 Va. Cir. 507 (Heflin v. Caroline County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Caroline County Circuit Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Heflin v. Caroline County, 83 Va. Cir. 507, 2010 Va. Cir. LEXIS 320 (Va. Super. Ct. 2010).

Opinion

By Judge Harry T. Taliaferro, III

Plaintiffs bring this suit challenging a special exception permit issued by the Board of Supervisors of Caroline County (the “Board”) for a Sand and Gravel Extraction use on property zoned Rural Preservation (RP) within the Resource Sensitive Overlay District (“RSD overlay”). The permit was issued to Clark’s Cut II, L.L.C. (“Clark’s Cut”). The site of the use is on land owned by Emmett C. Snead, III.

All defendants, on substantially the same grounds, have demurred to all five counts in the Complaint for Declaratory Judgment and other relief. Additionally, either within the Demurrer or by separate Motion to Dismiss or for Summary Judgment, all defendants seek to have plaintiffs struck from the suit for lack of standing and to bar plaintiffs from challenging the zoning administrator’s decision that the sand and gravel extraction use sought was permitted by special exception in the RP zoning district on the grounds that plaintiffs failed to exhaust their administrative remedies. Upon notice by defendants to plaintiffs, these matters came to be heard on August 26, 2009. Because of matters in the Record being before this Court for [508]*508purposes of the hearing, the Court treats all motions of Defendants as a Demurrer.

On August 13, 2009, the Court entered a Consent Order granting defendants’ Motion Craving Oyer by which certain exhibits became a part of the record of this case, namely (1) minutes of July 16, 2008, Planning Commission Meeting; (2) the Special Exception Board Packet before the supervisors for review at the October 28, 2008, public hearing, which includes application for special exception, Planning and Community Development Staff Report, recommendation from Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, correspondence from Caroline County Technical Review Committee, review of Special Exception by Sullivan, Donahue and Ingalls, and Review Form approvals and/or comments from Caroline County Departments of Public Works, Utilities, Schools, Recreation, Building Official, Health, Economic Development and Sheriff’s Office as well as from Fort A. P. Hill and from the Virginia Department of Transportation; (3) correspondence and petitions received from citizens addressing the special exception which were in the Board Packet before the supervisors for review at the public hearing; (4) minutes of the October 28,2008, public hearing on the special exception held at a regular meeting of the board of supervisors; (5). memorandum dated November 6, 2008, from the Director of the Caroline County Department of Planning and Community Development (the “DPCD”) discussing the special exception including further correspondence relating thereto provided to the board after the public hearing and present before the board at its November 13, 2008, meeting; and (6) minutes of the November 13, 2008, meeting of the board of supervisors at which the board approved the special exception (collectively the “Record”). These papers comprise the documentation of the zoning proceeding before the Board.

Demurrers

For the purposes of a Demurrer, the truth of all material facts, and reasonable inferences therefrom, are taken as admitted. Marshall v. Bird, 230 Va. 89 (1985). On demurrer, a court may examine not only the substantive allegations attacked, but also any accompanying exhibit mentioned in the pleadings. CaterCorp, Inc. v. Catering Concepts, Inc., 246 Va. 22 (1993). If a motion craving oyer has been granted, the Court, in ruling on the demurrer, may properly consider the facts alleged as amplified by the documents added to the Record on the motion. Hechler Chevrolet, Inc. v. General Motors Corp., 230 Va. 396 (1985). The Court “may ignore a party’s factual allegations contradicted by the terms of authentic, unambiguous documents that properly are a part of the pleadings.” Ward's Equipment v. New Holland North America, 254 Va. 379 (1997); Dodge v. Trustees of Randolph Macon Women’s College, 276 Va. 1 (2008). Allegations stating conclusions of law [509]*509or inferences drawn from conclusions of law are not taken as admitted by a demurrer. Motors Ins. Co. v. United States Fire Ins. Co., 208 Va. 684 (1968).

Count I: Violation of Zoning Ordinance

In Count I, plaintiffs have asked the Court to declare the special exception permit null and void ab initio because of inconsistencies in the language referring to the use. The special exception use permitted in a RP zoned district is “Sand and Gravel Extraction and Sales.” In the application, it is stated as “Sand and Gravel Extraction.” In published notices and in the recorded Special Exception Permit the Record shows the use is referred to as “Sand and Gravel Extraction Operation.” The permit issued is invalid, say plaintiffs, because the use authorized exceeds the scope of sand and gravel use permitted in a RP zoned district. They assert the issued permit authorizes the more intensive “Sand and Gravel Operations” and “Crushed Stone Operations,” which are uses allowed only in the M-l industrial district with a special exception. Plaintiffs also proffer that the words “processing and operations” in condition 14 of the approved special exception confirm or support an interpretation that M-l uses are being referred to.

Defendants demur on the grounds that such allegations fail to state a claim voiding the issued permit. The Court agrees. The Record clearly shows the application, plan, and permit issued were specifically for the RP, Rural Preservation, special exception provided under Caroline County Zoning Ordinance (“CZO”) § 4-5-3. Plaintiffs’ arguments would have the Court change “Operation,” referencing the use “Extraction,” to “Operations,” which they argue would reference multiple M-l industrial related uses, and then drop the limiting word “Extraction” to obtain “Sand and Gravel Operations” and “Crushed Stone Operation,” two industrial special exception uses allowed only in M-l. The arguments for such a construction are too attenuated. Words must be given their common ordinary meaning. No proposed M-l special exception uses were before the Board. For this to have been so, the site first would have had to be zoned M-1. The application did not seek this.

Condition 14 addresses restoration to agricultural productivity. In its entirety it reads: “Excluding marketable sand and gravel, no materials shall be transported off site. Topsoil and subsoil stratas shall be separated and remain on site to be used in the ongoing restoration process. At no time shall more than thirty acres, including the processing and operations area, be mined.” The words “processing and operations” must be read in context, consistent with all the language in the condition. “Processing” means the “ongoing [soil] restoration process,” not an unnamed M-1 industrial process. Plaintiffs’ argument that the use applied for and granted allows industrial “operations” by which sand and gravel would be rendered on site into some [510]*510other product runs counter to the condition language which, in accord with this being a sand and gravel extraction, allows only sand and gravel to be transported off the site. By its plain meaning, condition 14 requires soil to be left on site for agricultural restoration and limits the entire area of on-site operational aspects of extraction (excavation, soil strata separation, loading sand and gravel for transport, etc.) and on-site soil storage/restoration to no more than thirty acres. It does not deregulate sand and gravel extraction opening up the site for manufacturing.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
83 Va. Cir. 507, 2010 Va. Cir. LEXIS 320, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/heflin-v-caroline-county-vacccaroline-2010.