Petitioners sought to use their roughly three acre lot in an R-1 residential district for a medial clinic, which was an allowable use subject to obtaining a special use permit. During the initial public comment period, the Town Mayor – who owned property adjacent to the subject parcel – commented that she was surprised that this commercial use would be authorized for property zoned R-1 and commented that this should be changed.  The Town Board then determined that the petitioner’s application for a special use permit was incomplete (even though staff had found it to be complete).  While a revised application was pending, the Town amended the zoning ordinance to eliminate the use the petitioner sought as a special use in that district. Although the petitioner contended that the application should be reviewed under the applicable law at the time it was filed, following a hearing the Town Board denied the special use permit.  The petitioner contends that the Board’s denial was erroneous because the application should have been approved as a matter of law; the decision was arbitrary and capricious and was not supported by substantial evidence nor findings of fact; and that it violated their federal and state constitutional rights of due process and equal protection. The matter was removed to federal court for a declaration that the petitioner’s state and federal rights were violated. 

The Western District of North Carolina noted that under the Burford abstention (Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315 (1943)), federal courts should abstain from exercising jurisdiction where it can avoid “interfering with a complex state regulatory scheme concerning important matters of state policy for which impartial and fair administrative determinations subject to expeditions and adequate judicial review are afforded.” (see, Browning-Ferris, Inc. v. Baltimore County, 774 F.2d 77 (4^th Cir. 1985). Noting that the Fourth Circuit favors abstention from land use matters, as “[r]esolving the routine land-use disputes that inevitably and constantly arise among developers, local residents, and municipal officials is simply not the business of the federal courts,” (see, Gardner v. City of Baltimore Mat and City Council, 969 F.2d 63 (4^th Cir. 1992)), and that abstention is proper where “all of the plaintiffs’ state and federal claims necessarily depend upon the construction of state land use law concerning the scope of authority of local planning bodies and Boards of Supervisors, the proper interpretation of state and local land use law and county zoning practices and procedure.” (See Fralin & Waldron, Inc. v. City of Martinsville, 493 F.2d 481 (4^th Cir. 1974).  

Concluding that in the present matter, “all of the petitioner’s state and federal claims pivot on the construction of municipal land use law, the actions of public boards concerning such laws, and the proper interpretation of land use law by local zoning authorities,” the federal district court remanded the matter to state court.    

Templeton Properties, L.P. v. Town of Boone, 583900 (W.D.N.C. 3/3/2008).  

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