Opinion ID: 2548438
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reverse Spot Zoning

Text: PH also claims that the city council's denial of the rezoning request was reverse spot zoning because the property is an agricultural island in a sea of residential. This court has acknowledged that spot zoning, by definition, is invalid because it amounts to an arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable treatment of a limited area within a particular district. See Riddell v. City of Brinkley, 272 Ark. 84, 87, 612 S.W.2d 116, 117 (1981) (quoting R. Wright and S. Webber, Land Use (1978)). Furthermore, we have said that spot zoning is arbitrary because it departs from the comprehensive treatment or privileges not in harmony with the other use classifications in the area and without any apparent circumstances which call for different treatment.  Id. (emphasis added). Reverse spot zoning has been recognized where a city arbitrarily refuses to rezone property to bring it in conformity with the surrounding property. See Penn Cent. Trans. Co. v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104, 132, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978) (Reverse spot zoning is a land-use decision which arbitrarily singles out a particular parcel for different, less favorable treatment than the neighboring ones.). The circuit judge did not clearly err in finding that there was no reverse spot zoning in the instant case and that the city council's decision was reasonable and based on legitimate concerns. According to the testimony of seven aldermen, they denied PH's request based on the unique configuration of the land involved and the restrictions of an R-1 zoning classification. They also emphasized legitimate traffic and safety reasons for the denial. We further note that the instant case is distinguishable from the cases cited by PH from other jurisdictions in that the city council has not refused to rezone PH's property from agricultural to residential. Rather, it determined that R-1 was not the appropriate residential zoning classification. In City of Conway, this court affirmed the circuit judge's finding that the city acted arbitrarily in refusing to rezone the landowner's property from residential to business. The circuit judge based the decision, in part, on the fact that the property on all four sides of the parcel in question had already been rezoned to business. 266 Ark. at 410, 584 S.W.2d at 13. In that case, however, the evidence supported the circuit judge's additional finding that the city actually wanted to purchase the property from the landowner, and its denial of the rezoning request was arbitrary because it was aimed at inducing the landowner to sell to the city. Id. That is a very different scenario from that set out in the instant case. As a final point, this court has repeatedly stated that the fact that property is surrounded by parcels with different zoning designations does not automatically entitle a landowner to have his or her property rezoned. See id. at 409, 584 S.W.2d at 13. We have said that this is so even though the highest and best use of the property might be other than the current zone designation. Id. The City of Conway court clearly said that [i]f we were to allow any property abutting business property to be rezoned as business property, there would be no need of a zoning ordinance in the first place. Id. We affirm on this point.