Court Opinion

ID: 9490306
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:39:55.478005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:01.693394
License: Public Domain

ALAN E. NORRIS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Although one might posit a slow-growth ordinance which is sufficiently narrow and prospective to meet the test of rationality, we are not favored with such an ordinance in this appeal.
Plaintiffs are not individuals who contemplate purchasing lots in Hudson with full knowledge of the restrictions imposed by the slow-growth ordinance at issue in this case. Rather, they are, for the most part, individuals and business entities which have already invested substantial time and money in improving lots for development. Furthermore, they made these investments in good faith reliance upon platting approval received from the appropriate governmental bodies.
The majority’s analysis fails to distinguish between the legitimate expectations of these property owners, and those of future developers of lots located in Hudson. The district court recognized that the two groups are not similarly situated, declining to enjoin the prospective application of Chapter 1207. Instead, it limited the scope of the injunction to those lots which had obtained preliminary or final plat approval, and which enjoyed access to existing infrastructure.1 In my view, the distinction drawn by the district court is proper: forcing the owners of the lots covered by the injunction to comply with the scheme set forth by Chapter 1207 is not rationally related to the stated purpose of the slow-growth ordinance.
First, the primary rationale advanced by the City in defense of this ordinance concerns the rate at which new building threatens to outpace existing infrastructure. Given this concern, one would expect that exceptions to the allotment scheme would be made *596for approved lots with existing water, sewer, and road access. This is not the ease. Although such lots are accorded “priority” status, that designation is effectively meaningless because every allotment granted during the period under review went to a “priority” applicant. Second, limiting owners of multiple improved lots to the same, single allotment as owners of one lot strikes me as irrational on its face, particularly where, as here, owners of multiple lots have invested significant sums in infrastructure, the very problem Chapter 1207 purports to address.
In short, although deferential, our review of zoning ordinances such as that enacted by Hudson does not end once the city articulates a legitimate land use concern. Rather, we must make sure that the ordinance is rationally related to the alleviation of that concern. When its practical effect is to impose harm on a class of property owners which is clearly arbitrary and unreasonable, the ordinance runs afoul of substantive due process. Pearson v. City of Grand Blanc, 961 F.2d 1211, 1223 (6th Cir.1992). Because that is the ease here, I believe the district court properly granted injunctive relief to those individuals who own lots that have received either preliminary or final plat approval.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. The district court also enjoined enforcement of Chapter 1207 with respect to lots which have preliminary or final plat approval but are not currently improved; it did, however, delay the availability of injunctive relief until those lots "are fully improved with such infrastructure.”