6th Circuit Court of Appeals Affirms Decision Involving Due Process Nondelegation Claim Related to Requested Rezoning for Planned Unit Development

This post was authored by Gabriella Mickel, Elisabeth S. Haub School of Law of Pace University, JD, LLM candidate 2024

The Rice family sought to have their property, eighty-plus acres of vacant land in Monroe Township, Ohio, annexed into the Village of Johnstown, Ohio and rezoned for a residential development. When they were unsuccessful, they sued the Village, claiming a violation of due process rights due to an unlawful delegation of legislative authority to the Johnstown Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Commission, which rejected their rezoning application. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Village, and the Rice family appealed. After remand, the district court again granted summary judgment for the Village, dismissing the due process claims, and as a result, the Rice family appealed once more.

The court reviewed the facts and procedural history, indicating that the Rice family attempted to pursue both annexation and zoning as a “planned unit development (PUD)” concurrently. The P&Z Commission, a public body composed of officials appointed by the Village Council, rejected their zoning application, after the family spent 18 months and hundreds of thousands of dollars. This quashed the Rice family’s plan to transform the property into a housing development called “Concord Trails” through a purchase agreement with Wilcox Communities, a local development and construction business.

The Rice family claimed a unique nondelegation violation under the Due Process Clause, which protects alleged deprivations of “life, liberty, or property.” However, the court determined that nearly all nondelegation cases involved delegations to private parties, and the Rice family failed to show that the P&Z Commission was a self-interested private party. As a result, the court upheld the district court’s decision, denying the Rice family’s due process claims.

Judge Batchelder, in her separate concurring opinion, also discussed the issue of standing, noting that the Rice family lacked standing due to their failure to show a legally protected property interest. She agreed with the majority’s analysis of the nondelegation claim and would have reached the threshold property interest question.

In conclusion, the court affirmed the district court’s judgment in favor of the Village of Johnstown, dismissing the Rice family’s due process claims.

Rice v Village of Johnstown, OH, 2023 WL 4977457 (6^th Cir. CA 8/3/2023)