Justia Zoning, Planning & Land Use Opinion Summaries

Applicants Cynthia and Charles Burns wanted to make modifications to a two-unit residential building they owned in Burlington. A group of nineteen Burlington residents (neighbors) appealed a Superior Court, Environmental Division decision declining to reach the merits of neighbors’ claim that applicants converted their home into a duplex without a zoning permit on the grounds that the challenge was precluded by a prior decision under 24 V.S.A. 4472(d) or to consider whether a permit was required for applicants’ other modifications. On appeal to the Vermont Supreme Court, neighbors argued: (1) that their challenge was not precluded under section 4472(d) because the prior decision had not been rendered by the Burlington Zoning Administrator as the statute requires; (2) that preventing an appeal without affording notice and opportunity to be heard violated their due process rights; and (3) that they were entitled to a determination by the Environmental Division of whether applicants’ other modifications violated the zoning ordinance because they were done without a permit. The Supreme Court agreed, reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "In re Burns Two-Unit Residential Building (Long, et al. Appellants)" on Justia Law

Because of zoning by Upper Arlington, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, Tree of Life Christian Schools could not use its otherwise-unused land and building to operate a religious school. The government denied a rezoning application because such a use would not accord with provisions of the government’s Master Plan, which call for maintaining commercial use zoning to maximize tax revenue. TOL filed suit under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc– 2000cc-5, alleging that the government illegally failed to treat TOL Christian Schools on equal terms with nonreligious assemblies or institutions. The district court granted the government summary judgment. The Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded for resolution of the factual issue: whether the government treated nonreligious assemblies or institutions that would fail to maximize income-tax revenue in the same way it has treated the proposed religious school. View "Tree of Life Christian Schools v. City of Upper Arlington" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and two other individuals, seeking to operate a gun shop in the County, challenged the County's ordinance which requires that the proposed location of the business is not within 500 feet of a residentially zoned district. The district court subsequently granted the County's motion to dismiss for failure to state claim. The court concluded that, because plaintiff's equal protection challenge is no more than a Second Amendment claim dressed in equal protection clothing, it is subsumed by, and coextensive with the former, and therefore is not cognizable under the Equal Protection Clause. Nor did plaintiff adequately plead a class-of-one Equal Protection claim where plaintiff acknowledges that gun stores are materially different from other retail businesses and therefore is not a similarly situated business. The court concluded that the right to purchase and to sell firearms is part and parcel of the historically recognized right to keep and to bear arms, and that the Ordinance's potential interference was a proper basis for plaintiff's Second Amendment challenge. Furthermore, the Ordinance burdens conduct protected by the Second Amendment and is subject to heightened scrutiny. Under this standard, the court concluded that the County failed to carry its burden of demonstrating that there was a reasonable fit between the challenged regulation and its asserted objective. In this case, the County failed to satisfy its burden because it never justified the assertion that gun stores act as magnets for crime. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Teixeira v. County of Alameda" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs were property owners who privately leased units in Worcester, Massachusetts to students from the College of the Holy Cross. Plaintiffs brought suit alleging that the City of Worcester engaged in a scheme, through its zoning and code enforcement officials and entities, to selectively enforce the Worcester Zoning Ordinance and state Lodging House Act in order to pressure Holy Cross to make voluntary payments in lieu of property taxes to Worcester. The district court granted the City’s motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that the district court properly dismissed Plaintiffs’ claims for the reasons stated in the district court’s opinion. View "College Hill Props., LLC v. City of Worcester" on Justia Law

This appeal concerned two suits: one in state and one in federal court, and statutory limitations on the power of the federal court to enjoin the state court case. In the federal case, the Utah Attorney General and the Board of Tooele County Commissioners sued the federal government under the Quiet Title Act, attempting to quiet title in favor of Utah for hundreds of rights of way in Tooele County, Utah. Five environmental groups opposed this suit, and the federal district court permitted the groups to intervene. In the state court case, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Mr. Michael Abdo, a Tooele County resident, claimed that the Utah officials lacked authority under state law to prosecute the quiet-title action in federal court. The Utah officials asked the federal court to enjoin the Wilderness Alliance and Mr. Abdo from prosecuting the state-court case. The federal district court granted the request and entered a temporary restraining order enjoining the Wilderness Alliance and Mr. Abdo for an indefinite period of time. The Wilderness Alliance and Mr. Abdo appealed, raising two issues: (1) whether the Tenth Circuit had jurisdiction to hear the appeal; and (2) did the federal district court have the authority to enjoin the state-court suit? After concluding it had jurisdiction to hear this appeal, the Tenth Circuit then concluded that the federal district court did not have authority to enjoin the Utah state court. "The All Writs Act grants a district court expansive authority to issue 'all writs necessary.' But the Anti-Injunction Act generally prohibits federal courts from enjoining state-court suits." An exception exists when an injunction is "in aid of" the federal court’s exercise of its jurisdiction. This exception applies when: (1) the federal and state court exercise in rem or quasi in rem jurisdiction over the same res; and (2) the federal court is the first to take possession of the res. These circumstances are absent because the state-court action was neither in rem nor quasi in rem. Thus, the district court’s order violated the Anti-Injunction Act. View "Tooele County v. United States" on Justia Law

Developers filed suit against the City, contending that the City’s refusal to rezone land to permit higher-density development violated, among other things, the Equal Protection Clause and the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S.C. 3601 et seq. Developers maintain that the City’s refusal stemmed from intentional discrimination against Hispanics and created a disparate impact. The court held that Developers presented plausible claims for relief for disparate treatment under the FHA and under the Equal Protection Clause where the City Council denied Developers’ request for rezoning despite the advice of its own experts to the contrary and in the context of what a reasonable jury could interpret as racially charged opposition by Yuma residents. Further, this was the only request for rezoning that the City had denied in the last three years. Because the complaint passes the plausibility bar given these circumstances, the court reversed and remanded. The court also reversed and remanded the grant of summary judgment for the City on the disparate-impact claim, rejecting the district court’s view that other similarly-priced and similarly modeled housing available elsewhere necessarily precluded a finding that there was a disparate impact. The court vacated the denial of the second summary judgment as moot and remanded for the district court to address the motion in the first instance. View "Avenue 6E Investments, LLC v. City of Yuma" on Justia Law

Garden City appealed from a final judgment finding it liable for violations of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. 3601 et seq.; 42 U.S.C. 1981; 42 U.S.C. 1983; and the Equal Protection Clause. Plaintiffs cross-appealed from the 2012 grant of summary judgment by the same district court in favor of Nassau County. The court held that plaintiffs have Article III standing and plaintiffs' claims are also not moot; the district court did not commit clear error in finding that Garden City’s decision to abandon R‐M zoning in favor of R‐T zoning was made with discriminatory intent, and that defendants failed to demonstrate they would have made the same decision absent discriminatory considerations; the court affirmed the judgment insofar as it found plaintiffs had established liability under 42 U.S.C. 3604(a) of the FHA based on a theory of disparate treatment; the court held that 24 C.F.R. 100.500(c) abrogated the court's prior precedent as to the burden‐shifting framework of proving a disparate impact claim; the court vacated the judgment insofar as it found liability under a disparate impact theory, and remanded for further proceedings; the court held that the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs’ disparate treatment claims against Nassau County at the summary judgment stage because plaintiffs have not raised a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the County had legal responsibility for Garden City’s adoption of R‐T zoning; the court affirmed the dismissal of plaintiffs' disparate treatment claims against Nassau County at the summary judgment stage; and the court remanded with respect to plaintiffs' claims under Section 804(a) and Title VI relating to Nassau County’s “steering” of affordable housing. View "MHANY Mgmt., Inc. v. City of Nassau" on Justia Law

Garden City appealed from a final judgment finding it liable for violations of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. 3601 et seq.; 42 U.S.C. 1981; 42 U.S.C. 1983; and the Equal Protection Clause. Plaintiffs cross-appealed from the 2012 grant of summary judgment by the same district court in favor of Nassau County. The court held that plaintiffs have Article III standing and plaintiffs' claims are also not moot; the district court did not commit clear error in finding that Garden City’s decision to abandon R‐M zoning in favor of R‐T zoning was made with discriminatory intent, and that defendants failed to demonstrate they would have made the same decision absent discriminatory considerations; the court affirmed the judgment insofar as it found plaintiffs had established liability under 42 U.S.C. 3604(a) of the FHA based on a theory of disparate treatment; the court held that 24 C.F.R. 100.500(c) abrogated the court's prior precedent as to the burden‐shifting framework of proving a disparate impact claim; the court vacated the judgment insofar as it found liability under a disparate impact theory, and remanded for further proceedings; the court held that the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs’ disparate treatment claims against Nassau County at the summary judgment stage because plaintiffs have not raised a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the County had legal responsibility for Garden City’s adoption of R‐T zoning; the court affirmed the dismissal of plaintiffs' disparate treatment claims against Nassau County at the summary judgment stage; and the court remanded with respect to plaintiffs' claims under Section 804(a) and Title VI relating to Nassau County’s “steering” of affordable housing. View "MHANY Mgmt., Inc. v. City of Nassau" on Justia Law

Lamar filed suit challenging the City's denial of 45 applications to convert existing offsite signs - billboards with commercial messages in locations other than at a property owner's business - to digital signs. Lamar alleged that the sign ban violates the free speech clause of the California Constitution and the trial court agreed, granting a writ of mandate. The trial court concluded that the sign ban was a content-based regulation that could not withstand strict scrutiny analysis. After addressing preliminary issues, this court concluded on the merits that the city's offsite sign ban is not content-based, and therefore is not subject to strict scrutiny or heightened scrutiny under high court or California Supreme Court precedent. Consistent with the many authorities finding no constitutional infirmity under the First Amendment in the distinction between offsite and onsite signs, the court reached a like conclusion under the free speech clause of the California Constitution. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded to the trial court with directions to issue an order denying plaintiff‟s petition for a writ of mandate. View "Lamar Central Outdoor, LLC v. City of L.A." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the City, alleging that the City, acting through it's Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA), violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc et seq., by denying plaintiffs' request for a variance to permit a certain property to be used as a church facility. The district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice. The court concluded that plaintiffs failed to state a claim that the BZA’s decision imposed a substantial burden on plaintiffs’ right of religious exercise. The court also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiffs’ request to amend their complaint, because any such amendment would have been futile. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Andon, LLC v. The City of Newport News, VA" on Justia Law