Court Opinion

ID: 9599342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:18:03.562102+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:44.940779
License: Public Domain

Sears, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the majority opinion’s conclusion that, based upon the facts of this matter, the trial court correctly ruled that the zoning classification imposed by the County amounted to an unconstitutional taking without just and adequate compensation.
*195I write separately, however, to emphasize that the presumption of validity attaching to a governmental zoning decision can be overcome only by a plaintiff landowner’s showing by clear and convincing evidence that the zoning classification is a significant detriment to him, and is insubstantially related to the public health, safety, morality, and welfare.3 Only after both of these showings are made is a governing authority required to come forward with evidence to justify a zoning ordinance as reasonably related to the public interest.4 If a plaintiff landowner fails to make a showing by clear and convincing evidence of a significant detriment and an insubstantial relationship to the public welfare, the landowner’s challenge to the zoning ordinance fails.5
Furthermore, it is well established that “ £(a) significant detriment to the landowner is not shown by the fact that the property would be more valuable if rezoned, or by the fact that it would be more difficult to develop the . . . property as zoned than if rezoned.’ ”6 That is to say, a plaintiff landowner cannot satisfy his burden by showing that property could be put to a more profitable use if re-zoned.7 Land value always depends upon land use, and it is invariable that a more aggressive use of land by a landowner generally will increase a property’s value. But in zoning challenges, the pertinent question is not whether re-zoning would increase the value of property, but rather whether the existing zoning classification serves to deprive a landowner of property rights without due process of law.8 “Hence, the evidence that the subject property would be more valuable if rezoned . . . borders on being irrelevant.”9 In cases such as this one, the only relevant evidence regarding the value of the subject property is its value as it currently is zoned.10
In this matter, I agree with the majority that the plaintiff landowner has shown that the property’s present zoning classification is “so detrimental, and so insubstantially related to the public health, safety, morality and welfare, as to amount to an unconstitutional taking, that is an arbitrary confiscation of [the] property without *196compensation by the governing authority.”11 Therefore, I concur.
Decided November 30, 2000.
Crumbley & Crumbley, Wade M. Crumbley, for appellants.
Dillard & Galloway, G. Douglas Dillard, Andrea C. Jones, for appellees.
Schreeder, Wheeler & Flint, David H. Flint, Mark W. Forsling, Troutman Sanders, Harold G. Clarke, Charles F. Palmer, David C. Kirk, Wilson, Brock & Irby, Richard W. Wilson, Jr., Michele LeFaivre, amici curiae.
I am authorized to state that Presiding Justice Fletcher joins in this concurrence.

 DeKalb County v. Dobson, 267 Ga. 624, 626 (482 SE2d 239) (1997); Delta Cascade Partners II v. Fulton County, 260 Ga. 99, 100 (390 SE2d 45) (1990).

 Dobson, supra; Flournoy v. City of Brunswick, 248 Ga. 573, 574 (285 SE2d 16) (1981); Delta Cascade, supra.

 Dobson, supra; Delta Cascade, supra.

 Dobson, supra; Delta Cascade, 260 Ga. at 100. See DeKalb County v. Chamblee Dunwoody Hotel Partnership, 248 Ga. 186, 190 (281 SE2d 525) (1981); Koppar Corp. v. Griswell, 246 Ga. 539, 540 (272 SE2d 272) (1980); Westbrook v. Bd. of Adjustment, 245 Ga. 15, 16-17 (262 SE2d 785) (1980).

 Dobson, supra; Chamblee Dunwoody Hotel Partnership, 248 Ga. at 189.

 Chamblee Dunwoody Hotel Partnership, supra.

 Id. at 190.

 Id.

 Op. at 194.