Opinion ID: 1391168
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: commercial use restrictions

Text: After dividing its jurisdiction into districts, a local governing body may, within each district, regulate, restrict, permit, prohibit, and determine . . . [t]he use of land, buildings, structures and other premises for agricultural, commercial, industrial, residential, flood plain and other specific uses. Code § 15.1-486. Here, the Board divided its jurisdiction into districts and placed each in a broad category. Two of these categories are reserved for business uses, and the subject property has been assigned to one of these. We have rejected a constitutional challenge to this classification structure ( see Part II, supra ). We now consider whether the subclassifications the Board made within the category to which the subject property is assigned violate constitutional restraints. Within the B-2 business classification, 8A separates commercial uses into two distinct sub-classes. Hotels, motels, and theatres are permitted; banks, office buildings, and grocery stores are prohibited. Antique shops are permitted; shops selling antique reproductions are prohibited. Restaurants are permitted; fast food or drivein restaurants are prohibited. Gift shops are permitted, provided they are accessory to hotels or motels having 50 or more dwelling or lodging units and are designed and scaled only to meet the requirements of occupants and their guests; other retail stores selling identical gifts are prohibited. Like classifications of districts into broad use categories, sub-classifications of uses permitted and uses prohibited are, to some degree, arbitrary. Such sub-classifications are presumed to be reasonable, but, unless they are substantially related to the public health, safety, or welfare, the restrictions on use offend both the equal protection and due process guarantees. [A] classification cannot prohibit or restrict certain uses and permit other uses where there is no valid basis, reasonably related to the public health, safety, morals, welfare or other proper object of the police power, for distinguishing between them. 8 McQuillin, supra at § 25.123(332). See e. g., Frost v. Village of Glen Ellyn, 30 Ill.2d 241, 195 N.E.2d 616 (1964) (holding exclusion of drive-in restaurant from a business zone unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious); Vernon Park Realty v. Mount Vernon, 307 N.Y. 493, 121 N.E.2d 517 (1954) (striking down an ordinance which excluded all uses except vehicular parking). One of the permissible purposes of a zoning ordinance is to protect against destruction of or encroachment upon historic areas. Code § 15.1-489. Nothing in the evidence shows that implementation of any of the commercial uses prohibited by 8A would destroy or encroach upon Colonial Williamsburg. Nor is there any evidence that such uses are noxious, dangerous, or otherwise inimical to the public health, safety, or welfare. The exclusion from a zoning district of a particular use, or category of uses, will be upheld where that exclusion is substantially related to a proper exercise of the police power. Fairfax County v. Parker, supra, 186 Va. at 688, 44 S.E.2d at 15 (upholding a use restriction against a commercial junkyard within a residential district). But 8A excludes a large number of otherwise legitimate retail business uses from a retail business district, when nothing in the record shows that the uses excluded would be more detrimental to the public welfare than the uses permitted. The trial court ruled that 8A imposes unreasonable restrictions upon the use of properties within said B-2 zone. Finding no substantial nexus between the commercial use restrictions imposed and the public weal, we are of opinion that the ruling of the trial court was correct; that the evidence was sufficient to overcome the legislative presumption of reasonableness; that the Board's evidence was insufficient to make the question of reasonableness fairly debatable; and that the commercial use restrictions deny B-2 landowners equal protection of the laws and constitute a taking of property without due process of law.