Spenger, Grubb & Associates v. City of Hailey, Idaho, 1995
Topics: Community Impact | Lawsuits
A developer appealed a decision of the Hailey, Idaho City Council to change its zoning of land owned by Spenger, Grubb from “business” to “limited business”. The litigation was over 12.6 acres of land located well outside the city’s downtown district. In 1990, the city amended its Comprehensive Plan defining its downtown as “the existing business core.” The city later “downzoned” the developer’s land to limited business because of the property’s distance away from the city’s “business core.” The City Council said, “the existence of a large retail commercial property outside the Hailey Business Core…is not in accordance with the current Hailey Comprehensive Plan.” The court cited other Idaho cases which determined that “a strong presumption exists in favor of the validity of local zoning ordinances. The burden of proving that the ordinance is invalid rests upon the party challenging its validity.” The developer said the city’s “downzoning” of his land was a confiscatory “taking” that diminished the value of its property. But the court said “a property owner has no vested interest in the highest and best use of his land, in the solely monetary sense of that term,” and that a “zoning ordinance which downgrades the economic value of property does not constitute a taking of property in violation of the (5th and 14th amendments) of the United States Constitution, where some residual value remains in the property.” The court said the developer was left with “adequate options for commercial enterprises,” The court invoked the U.S. Supreme Court Penn Central case that land use regulations which are reasonably related to the promotion of the general welfare, and which result in diminution of property value, are not a taking. The developer charged that the rezoning of their land was “an invalid exercise of police powers to protect downtown merchants from retail competition.” The court noted that the city’s Comprehensive Plan requires the City Council to ‘encourage a central business core that will be conducive to economic growth…and optimize the use of the existing infrastructure and decrease dependence on automobiles.” The court said Hailey had the right to determine “where particular business uses shall be allowed to expand in a community,” and that “preserving aesthetic values and the economic viability of a community’s downtown business core can be a proper zoning purpose.”
