Constitutional – Rezoning Application – Substantive and Procedural Due Process – Due Process Clause – Community Development Code – Property Interest

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Plaintiff cannot state a substantive or procedural due process claim since it did not have a cognizable property interest in approval of its rezoning application.

We affirmed the judgment of the district court.

The Beaufort County Council denied Scratch Golf, LLC’s rezoning application. Scratch Golf then sued in federal court, alleging that Beaufort County and the Council violated its constitutional rights. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim.

We began with Scratch Golf’s claims that the County Council violated its substantive and procedural due process rights under the United States Constitution. To adequately plead either, Scratch Golf must allege a property interest in approval of its rezoning application that is cognizable under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.

Beaufort County’s Community Development Code commits rezoning decisions to the discretion of the County Council. The Code identifies factors to be considered but does not require the Council to approve any rezoning application. Scratch Golf makes much of the fact that the County Council had previously designated this property as a “Village Place Type,” which is a parcel suitable for higher-density mixed-use development. That designation gave Scratch Golf an opportunity to seek a comprehensive zoning amendment, but it did not entitle Scratch Golf to rezoning; the Council retained discretion under the Code to deny Scratch Golf’s application. Because Scratch Golf did not have a cognizable property interest in approval of its rezoning application, it cannot state a substantive or procedural due process claim.

We turned next to Scratch Golf’s allegation that the County Council treated it differently from similarly situated property owners and developers in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. However, the zoning authority’s actual motivation is irrelevant.

Moving to the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, Scratch Golf alleged that denial of its rezoning application amounted to a regulatory taking of its property without just compensation. First, Scratch Golf alleged the rezoning denial prohibits certain economically viable uses of its property, but it has not alleged facts establishing that the zoning decision caused a “substantial diminution” in the value of its property. Second, investment-backed expectations must be “reasonable given the current use of the property” and “founded ‘on a preexisting property right.’” We already determined Scratch Golf lacks a property right in a change of zoning. And although Scratch Golf has a property right in its land, the rezoning decision did not interfere with its ability to continue its preexisting use of that land as a golf course. Third, as for the character of the governmental action, development restrictions “based on density and other traditional zoning concerns” adjust “the benefits and burdens of economic life to promote the common good” and so are “less likely to be considered a taking.” Weighing these three factors, Scratch Golf failed to plausibly state a claim for relief under Penn Central.

Finally, the district court acted within its discretion when it declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Scratch Golf’s state-law estoppel claim after it dismissed all the federal claims.

Affirmed.

Scratch Golf LLC v. Beaufort County (Lawyers’ Weekly No. 003-005-24, 6 pp.) (Allison Jones Rushing, J.) Appealed from U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina at Beaufort (Richard Mark Gergel, J.) Argued: Jeffrey Scott Tibbals, Bybee & Tibbals, LLC, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, for appellant; William Hewitt Cox, III, Howell, Gibson & Hughes, PA, Beaufort, South Carolina, for appellees On Brief: Evan P. Williams, Bybee & Tibbals, LLC, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, for appellant. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Unpublished