Opinion ID: 1391168
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: district classifications and equal protection

Text: The governing body of any county . . may, by ordinance, divide the territory under its jurisdiction or any substantial portion thereof into districts of such number, shape and area as it may deem best suited to carry out the purposes of this article. . ., Code § 15.1-486 (Repl.Vol.1973), and . . . the regulations in one district may differ from those in other districts. Code § 15.1-488 (Repl.Vol.1973). Encompassing the specific purposes of zoning ordinances defined in Code § 15.1-489 (Repl.Vol.1973) is the general purpose of promoting the health, safety or general welfare of the public. . . . By these and related statutes, the General Assembly has delegated to local governments the police power to establish and regulate zoning districts. Boundary lines of zoning districts must be struck somewhere, and a line drawn by the most impartial arbiter is, to some unavoidable degree, arbitrary. It is seldom that there is any definite reason for holding that a lot on one side of a line should be devoted to one purpose and that just across it to another. The adaptability of certain territorial sections of cities to certain uses fade into each other. One end of a field may be, beyond peradventure, suited to industrial developments, the other to private homes. Intervening there must be a twilight zone. If the Legislature cannot be relied upon to say where lines must run, who can be vested with that discretion? Demonstrative accuracy is an impossibility. West Bros. Brick Co. v. City of Alexandria, 169 Va. 271, 283-84, 192 S.E. 881, 886 (1937), app. dism'd, 302 U.S. 658, 58 S.Ct. 369, 82 L.Ed. 508 (1937), reh. denied, 302 U.S. 781, 58 S.Ct. 480, 82 L.Ed. 603 (1938). The landowners contend that a B-2 classification for the subject property is discriminatory because the adjacent property of Anheuser-Busch is classified M-1 and M-2. Adjacency is always relevant to the question of discriminatory zoning classification, but adjacent properties may be zoned differently when there is a rational basis for the different classifications. 8 E. McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 25.61(152-53) (1965); 1 Rathkopf, supra at 7-2 to 7-4; 1 Yokley, supra at § 4-17(164). See also, Lewis v. District of Columbia, 89 U.S. App.D.C. 72, 190 F.2d 25, 28 (1951). Zoning classifications of adjoining areas enjoy the presumption of legislative validity and equal protection until the presumption is overcome by evidence of discrimination. Board of Supervisors v. Carper, 200 Va. 653, 107 S.E.2d 390 (1959); Fairfax County v. Parker, 186 Va. 675, 44 S.E.2d 9 (1947). Here, as far as the landowners' evidence shows, the only indicium of similarity between the subject property and the Anheuser-Busch property is physical adjacency, and the presumption of validity of the different classifications must prevail. Conceding that [t]he fact that only one area of the County is included within the B-2 zone would not of itself prove discrimination, the landowners argue that [t]he fact that other areas of the County meet the same criteria or definition as a `tourist entry zone' but have not been burdened with the confiscatory restriction, does. Under 8A, the B-2 classification is not intended for general application in all parts of the County but will be limited to those areas where high traffic volume tourist corridors exist. The record contains some evidence that the roads bearing the heaviest tourist entry into the Williamsburg area are those which approach from the north and west, and none of the property along those several roads has been zoned B-2. However, the traffic entering the area on one of those roads is only a portion of the traffic travelling both east and west along Route 60 between Williamsburg and Busch Gardens. How the latter traffic load compares with traffic between the Williamsburg area and other major tourist attractions, such as Jamestown and Yorktown, is not disclosed by the evidence. Nor is there any evidence to show that, in respects other than traffic impact, the subject property is similar to other property situated between two historical attractions. Absent such evidence, and in light of testimony that the subject property is a very special piece of property and is unlike any other property in the County, the landowners failed to show that zoning of the subject property to a classification different from that assigned other areas of the county is discriminatory.