Shoemake v. Woodland Equities, Inc.
| Decision Date | 14 March 1984 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 40369,40370,40371,s. 40369 |
| Citation | 252 Ga. 389,313 S.E.2d 689 |
| Parties | SHOEMAKE et al. v. WOODLAND EQUITIES, INC., et al. SHOEMAKE et al. v. WOODLAND EQUITIES, INC., et al. WRIGHT v. |
| Court | Georgia Supreme Court |
Wall & Noonan, Alford Wall, Vanderhoff & Jordan, Lynwood D. Jordan, Jr., for appellants (case nos. 40369, 40370).
Troutman, Sanders, Lockerman & Ashmore, William G. Vance Richard A. Newton, Norman L. Underwood, Herbert D. Shellhouse, for appellees.
Kilpatrick & Cody, William B. Gunter, D. Scott Stenhouse, Thomas C. Shelton, amicus curiae.
This case raises the question of whether it was error for county zoning authorities to deny appellees' application for a building permit. Summary judgment was granted by the trial court in favor of the landowner, Woodland Equities, Inc., and its lessee, Martin Marietta Corporation, who sought mandamus to require the Forsyth County Commissioners and its planning director to issue a permit allowing them to construct an office building at a rock quarry site. The Commissioners appeal in Case Nos. 40369 and 40370. A neighbor, who was denied intervention in the case, appeals that denial in Case No. 40371. We affirm.
Appellee Woodland Equities, Inc. (Woodland) was formed by Emory Lipscomb, its president and attorney, for the sole purpose of purchasing suitable land and developing a stone crushing operation in southern Forsyth County. In a series of transactions beginning in July 1979, Woodland acquired approximately 833 acres of undeveloped land in southern Forsyth County which it planned to lease for development as a quarry. When purchased, the land carried an "agricultural" designation under the applicable Forsyth County zoning ordinance, and mining was specifically designated as a permitted use in districts zoned agricultural under the ordinance. Prior to buying the land, attorney Lipscomb in the spring and early summer of 1979 conferred with two Forsyth County officials to be certain that the land was suited for the intended development as a rock quarry. Lipscomb, himself a former county attorney for Forsyth County, testified that in the spring of 1979 he checked county records in the courthouse, then telephoned and wrote to Edsel Martin, the county zoning coordinator, to inquire about the present zoning of the land he proposed to buy. He visited Martin at the county zoning offices, and the two of them carefully reviewed the status of the lots in question, referring to county zoning maps and files. Lipscomb further testified that he did this because "I wanted to make sure and get assurances from officials in a position to tell me what the zoning for this tract was," and that Woodland would never have purchased the land without first confirming that mining was an approved use. In a letter dated July 26, 1979, Martin referred to the specific lots in question and confirmed that the land was presently zoned "agricultural." (Both Lipscomb, the former county attorney who helped write the zoning ordinance, and Martin, the present zoning administrator, unquestionably knew that this meant that mining was a permitted use of the land under the then-existing ordinance.) Lipscomb also consulted with John Shinall, the Forsyth County county attorney, during this period. By letter dated May 25, 1979, Shinall assured Lipscomb that mining was indeed a permitted use of land zoned "agricultural" in Forsyth County.
Relying on these assurances, as well as the existing zoning, Woodland spent over $1 million to purchase the land, buying the last parcel on July 31, 1981. Negotiations were begun with appellee Martin Marietta Corporation (Martin Marietta) in August 1979, and in September 1980, Woodland granted Martin Marietta a long-term lease of the land for purposes of development as a rock quarry. Martin Marietta paid Woodland $50,000 when the lease was executed, and has since incurred costs in excess of $90,000 for testing, drilling and engineering work done in preparation for developing the land as a quarry. In addition, Woodland has since 1979 spent some $66,000, above and beyond the purchase price, for engineering studies, surveys, maps aerial photography, and other quarry-related matters.
In July 1981, after appellees' intentions to develop a quarry in southern Forsyth County became publicly known, the Forsyth County Commission by resolution enacted Ordinance No. 9, the so-called "environmental review" ordinance. This measure conditioned the issuance of permits for new industrial and commercial developments in the county on a review, by an ad hoc citizens committee, of the potential adverse environmental effect of the proposed development and the committee's approval of the proposed use. Less than a month later, the ordinance was again adopted by unanimous vote of the five-member Forsyth County Commission, this time as a formal amendment to the existing zoning ordinance. At trial three of the members of the county commission testified that their purpose in passing Ordinance No. 9 was "to stop the rock quarry" from being built. In November 1981, the commission adopted an ordinance which for the first time removed mining operations from the uses permitted in agriculturally zoned districts.
An interesting sidelight to the legislative activities of the county during this period was its treatment of the Georgia Marble Company (Georgia Marble), the operator of the only existing quarry in Forsyth County. In November 1981, subsequent to adoption of the two environmental ordinances and only five days before mining was withdrawn as a permitted use in agriculturally zoned districts, the county issued Georgia Marble a certificate of zoning compliance which allowed it to continue and, in some cases, to expand its quarry operations.
In October 1982, Woodland and Martin Marietta applied to the appropriate county officials for a permit to construct an office building as part of its proposed mining operations on the quarry site. The planning director of Forsyth County reviewed the application and refused to issue a permit because (1) as a result of the 1981 ordinance, mining was no longer a permitted use on land zoned as an agricultural district, and (2) Woodland and Martin Marietta had failed to obtain a county environmental development permit.
Woodland and Martin Marietta then filed this mandamus action to compel issuance of the building permit. The case proceeded to trial where, at the conclusion of the plaintiffs' evidence, the trial judge granted summary judgment for Woodland and Martin Marietta, ordering that the requested building permit be issued to them. The commissioners and planning director of Forsyth County bring this appeal.
1. The trial court properly granted summary judgment for Woodland and Martin Marietta and found that the challenged zoning ordinances were void because they were arbitrarily enacted and discriminatorily applied to appellees.
Our cases establish a two-part analysis of claims of discriminatory application of local zoning laws: first, the challenged ordinances must on their face be reasonable and non-discriminatory, Snow v. Johnston, 197 Ga. 146, 28 S.E.2d 270 (1943); and second, they must be applied in a non-discriminatory manner, Matthews v. Fayette Co., 233 Ga. 220, 210 S.E.2d 758 (1978). These Forsyth County ordinances fail on both counts.
Appellants assert that since neither the environmental review ordinance nor the mining classification on their face prohibits quarrying, no discriminatory intent can be attributed to the county commissioners in enacting them. But this assessment of the events leading to the denial of appellees' building permit flies in the face of all the known facts, including the uncontradicted testimony of three of the county commissioners (a voting majority) to the effect that both the mining classification change and the environmental review ordinance were adopted for one reason--"to stop the quarry." It is true that the amended ordinance did not "on...
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