Opinion ID: 2505480
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applicability of the Grandfather Clause contained within the provisions of Hurricane Municipal Code

Text: Hurricane Municipal Ordinance § 936.22(a) provides that [f]ollowing June 6, 2005, no building permit shall be issued without an approved stormwater management plan required under this Article. Id. The circuit court found that this provision clearly recognizes that the stormwater ordinance would apply to only building permits issued after the date the ordinance was enacted that actually required a stormwater management plan (new developments and redevelopment projects). Thus, the circuit court found that, because the Appellees' subdivision began before both the date of the ordinance was approved and the date stated in the ordinance, a stormwater management plan was not required for the Appellees' subdivision prior to the issuance of a building permit. The Appellants argue that the circuit court erred in applying the legal principle of nonconforming use [7] to find that the Appellees were grandfathered [8] from complying with the stormwater ordinance. The Appellees, on the other hand, assert that the circuit court did not err in its determination that the Appellees' development fell within the purview of the grandfather clause of Hurricane Municipal Ordinance § 936.22. The circuit court's ruling ignores the express language of the ordinance. So long as a building permit is sought after June 6, 2005, it will not issue without an approved stormwater management plan as required by the ordinance. Id. The Appellees sought the building permits in this case after June 6, 2005. Accordingly, the Appellees were not exempted from complying with the ordinance. As additional support for the circuit court's conclusion that the Appellees' requests for building permits fell within the grandfather clause of Hurricane Municipal Ordinance § 936,22(a), the circuit court relied upon the decision of this Court in H.R.D.E., Inc. v. Zoning Officer of the City of Romney, 189 W.Va. 283, 430 S.E.2d 341 (1993). [9] The circuit court recognized that this decision was a zoning case, but relied on the decision anyway, stating the same concerns arise for stormwater management ordinances as arise in zoning ordinances: permanent restrictions and burdens on the use of land, the hardship of immediate compliance with new ordinances regulating existing uses, and the reduction on the value of property with the ordinance in place. Therefore, the Court finds the closest precedents to guide this Court are zoning regulations, even though stormwater regulations are not zoning regulations per se. In H.R.D.E., a landowner brought an action challenging the Romney City Council's affirmance of an order of the board of zoning appeals' denial of a building permit for construction of property for elderly and physically handicapped. Id. at 284, 430 S.E.2d at 342. The landowner had purchased property, including culverts and storm sewers for the access road. Id. at 285, 430 S.E.2d at 343. Material for the project also had been delivered and unloaded on the construction site. Id. The construction, however, had not begun and was delayed. Id. The City of Romney, in the interim, began the process of enacting a zoning ordinance, which ultimately became law. Id. at 285-86, 430 S.E.2d at 343-44. The landowner then sought a building permit for construction of an apartment building, which was disapproved because the building was to be constructed in a residential district and the project failed to qualify as a nonconforming use. Id. at 286, 430 S.E.2d at 344. The Court, on appeal, found that the issue to be addressed was whether the actions of the landowner were sufficient to establish a vested right to a nonconforming use as the project was started several years before the zoning ordinance was enacted. Id. The Court determined that the landowner had vested rights to complete the project to build the housing for the elderly and physically handicapped as a nonconforming use, even though the landowner had not completed or even started the project before the zoning ordinance was enacted. H.R.D.E., 189 W.Va. at 288, 430 S.E.2d at 346. The reliance by the circuit court on this Court's decision in H.R.D.E. was erroneous. The decision in H.R.D.E. dealt with a non-conforming use, a concept which is part of the law of zoning. H.R.D.E., 189 W.Va. at 286, 430 S.E.2d at 344 (A nonconforming use is `[a] use which lawfully existed prior to the enactment of a zoning ordinance, and which is maintained after the effective date of the ordinance, although it does not comply with the zoning restrictions applicable to the district in which it is situated[.]' 1 Robert M. Anderson, American Law of Zoning 3d, § 6.01, at 446 (1986).). The applicability of the instant ordinance to the new construction in the Appellees' subdivision is not analogous to nonconforming use in a zoning case. The subject ordinance was not enacted as part of a comprehensive plan and did not change or alter the character or use of the Appellees' property. See, e.g., Largent v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals for the Town of Paw Paw, 222 W.Va. 789, 671 S.E.2d 794 (2008). To the contrary, the resolution of the instant matter was one of statutory construction. [10]