Parker v. County of Madison, 911469
| Decision Date | 05 June 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 911469,911469 |
| Citation | 418 S.E.2d 855,244 Va. 39 |
| Parties | Michael J. PARKER, et al. v. The COUNTY OF MADISON, et al. Record |
| Court | Virginia Supreme Court |
John G. Berry (Berry & Early, on briefs), for appellants.
David C. Dickey (J. Thomas Province, on brief), for appellees John D. Zaleski, II and Cynthia Zaleski.
V.R. Shackleford, III, for appellee Madison County.
Present: All the Justices.
In this land use case, the sole issue is whether, after amending a subdivision ordinance without making any provision to "grandfather" pending applications, a local governing body may lawfully invoke an unwritten "practice" of applying prior law to a pending application, and thereafter approve a subdivision prohibited by the amendment. We answer that question in the negative and reverse.
The relevant facts are not in dispute. In 1989, appellees John D. Zaleski, II, and Cynthia Zaleski, his wife (collectively, the developer), decided to purchase and develop approximately 79 acres of land on State Route 631 in Madison County. On June 26, 1989, the developer submitted a preliminary plat to the County Administrator applying to subdivide the subject property into 11 residential lots. Appellants Michael J. Parker and Mary H. Parker, his wife (collectively, the neighbor), owned a farm contiguous to the subject property. Both tracts are zoned for agricultural use under the County's Zoning Ordinance.
On June 29, 1989, the County Board of Supervisors duly adopted an amendment to the County's Subdivision Ordinance which prohibited subdivision of any tract of land zoned for agricultural use into more than four lots within any four-year period. The amendment became effective upon adoption and contained no provision that subdivision applications then pending would be governed by the prior law.
In July 1989, the developer acquired title to the subject property. In August 1989, the developer's preliminary subdivision plat was considered by the County Planning Commission. Upon the developer's request, action on the plat was tabled so that the developer could satisfy certain highway department requirements and so that the number of planned lots could be reduced to eight. Later that month, the developer submitted a new preliminary plat incorporating those changes.
In September 1989, following a public hearing at which the neighbor objected to the proposed subdivision, the Planning Commission approved the new preliminary plat. In January 1990, the developer submitted a final plat, with further revisions, to subdivide the subject property into eight lots. On February 7, 1990, the Planning Commission recommended approval of the final plat and the Board of Supervisors approved the proposed subdivision.
On February 8, 1990, the neighbor filed the present declaratory judgment suit naming as defendants the County and the developer. The neighbor asked the trial court to declare that the action of the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors in approving the subdivision was invalid and that the approved subdivision plat was not entitled to recordation. Responding, the defendants asserted that the County acted properly in approving the subdivision and asked for dismissal of the suit.
Following a January 1991 ore tenus hearing, the chancellor, in a May 1991 letter opinion, ruled in favor of the County and the developer. The chancellor found that because the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors "approved the preliminary plat and final plat of subdivision under its longstanding practice of granting to an applicant for subdivision approval benefit of the ordinance in effect at time of application," the developer was "entitled to the benefit of that policy which is not unlawful." The chancellor agreed with the County that, by approving the final plat, "the subdivision approved was an appropriate amendment of the original preliminary plan." We awarded the neighbor an appeal from the June 1991 final decree dismissing the suit.
Ordinarily, with certain exceptions not pertinent here, proceedings after an amendment to a former law "shall conform, so far as practicable, to the laws in force at the time of such proceedings." Code § 1-16. This rule applies to amendments of local ordinances. Chesterfield Civic Ass'n v. Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 215 Va. 399, 402, 209 S.E.2d 925, 927 (1974). The rule is in accord with the settled principle that new laws will apply only to future ca...
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