Agenda - 02-15-2011 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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32 bin operation to the site. The planning director recommended approval of the rezoning from residential to industrial use based on the site's accessibility to a major highway, a railroad, and public water. The planning board approved the recommendation, and it was narrowly adopted by the county commissioners. The court invalidated the rezoning, fording that the `whole intent and purpose ...was to accommodate his plans to relocate his grain bins, not to promote the most appropriate use of the land throughout the community."[25] The court acknowledged the availability of some services that would make this tract suitable for industrial development, but concluded that the same was true ofthe surrounding property and because this tract was "essentially similar," there was no reasonable basis for zoning it differently. Mahaffey v. Forsyth County[26] illustrates the growing importance of a formal comprehensive plan and the recommendations of the planning board in spot zoning analysis. In this 1990 case a 0.57-acre tract was rezoned from a residential and highway-business district to a general- business district (both the prior highway-business district and the new general-business district were special use districts). The comprehensive plan designated the area as "predominantly rural with some subdivisions adjacent to farms." The planning staff and the planning board recommended against the rezoning, but it was adopted by the board of commissioners. In ruling the action to be illegal spot zoning, the court pointedly noted, "[T]he County Planning Board and Planning Board Staff, made up of professionals who are entrusted with the development of and adherence to the comprehensive plan, recommended denial of the petition." [27] A similar result was reached in Covington v. Town of Apex,[28] in which the rezoning of a single lot from office and institutional use to conditional-use business was held to be impermissible spot zoning. The court concluded that the rezoning contradicted the town's policies on Location of industrial uses, as set forth in the comprehensive plan. The court also found minimal benefit to the public and substantial detriment to neighbors. In Budd v. Davie County[29] the rezoning of a fourteen-acre site along the Yadkin River, along with ahalf--mile long, sixty feet wide accessway, from residential-agricultural to industrial to accommodate a sand mining operation was invalidated in part because it directly contradicted the previously adopted policies for the area. The zoning ordinance's stated intent for the Rural- AgriculturalDistrict was to .maintain a "rural development pattern" with an aim "clearly to exclude commercial and industrial uses."[30] Based on such considerations, the planning board twice recommended denial of the rezoning petition. The court held the rezoning was in direct contravention of the stated purpose of the comprehensive zoning scheme and this factored into invalidation ofthe rezoning.[31] On the other hand, consistency with a comprehensive plan can justify differential zoning for a small tract. In Graham v. City of Raleigh,[32] a 1981 case, the rezoning of a 19.3-acre tract from a residential to an office district was upheld in part based on the need to rezone the property in accordance with the nodal concept of development of Raleigh's comprehensive plan.[33] It should be noted that formal amendment of an inconsistent comprehensive plan is not necessarily required to avoid a fording of illegal spot zoning, though a reasonable basis for the deviation must be established. In Purser v. Mecklenburg County[34J the court upheld a rezoning of a 14.9 acre tract from residential to a business conditional use district to allow construction of