Fed. Dist. Court of SC Upholds Denial of Rezoning Application

This post was authored by Matthew Loescher, Esq.

Plaintiff Two Parks petitioned the Kershaw County Planning Commission for amendment of the zoning ordinance/map to rezone Lugoff Farms to R-15, the designation for low density, single-family residential districts. The staff recommended to the Planning Commission that it recommend approval of the rezoning request to Kershaw County Council, which the Commission did by unanimous vote. Despite this recommendation, two weeks later Kershaw County Council voted unanimously to deny the request. Two Parks, LLC then brought this action against Kershaw County, alleging Defendant Kershaw County, South Carolina violated its rights, as a class of one, pursuant to the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Kershaw County first argued Two Parks’ Equal Protection claim failed to meet the pleading requirements and should therefore be dismissed. Two Parks contended that dismissal on this ground would be improper inasmuch as its complaint sufficiently stated a cause of action that it, as a class of one, was injured by the arbitrary and capricious denial of its rezoning requests by the Kershaw County Council. By stating in its complaint that its “proposed residential development of 137 homes was very similar to developments recently approved by Kershaw County Council,” the court found that Two Parks had alleged that Kershaw County treated it differently than others similarly situated. Accordingly, the court held it would be error to grant Kershaw County’s motion for summary judgment on the basis that Two Parks failed to meet the equal protection pleading requirements.

The court next determined that Two Parks failed to establish the third element of its Equal Protection claim: that there was no rational basis for the difference in treatment. Here, the evidence that the Kershaw County Council responded to the public opposition did not rise to the level of a Constitutional violation, as the Fourth Circuit has long recognized that zoning matters are inherently political, and that it is a zoning decision-maker’s responsibility to mediate disputes between developers, and local residents. Thus, the court held Kershaw County was entitled to summary judgment on this basis.

Two Parks, LLC v Kershaw County, SC, 2021 WL 492439 (D. SC 2/10/2021)