Court Opinion

ID: 9845703
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:26:35.134434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:18.842332
License: Public Domain

Fletcher, Justice.
We granted the property owner’s discretionary application in order to determine whether the discontinuation of a permissible nonconforming use as a result of the revocation of a business license results in the destruction of that nonconforming use as a matter of law. We find that it does not and reverse the judgment of the trial court.
The subject property has been continuously operated and maintained as a rooming house since the 1920’s. It is currently zoned R-4 (single-family residential) under the City of Atlanta Zoning Ordinance. A rooming house is not permitted in that zoning classification; however, because the use of the property as a rooming house predated the adoption of the city’s zoning ordinance, the use as a rooming house has been permitted as a legal, nonconforming use.
Prior to appellant’s purchase of the property, the mayor revoked the former owner’s business license, effective June 19, 1987, due to housing, building, and electrical code violations. In May of 1987, however, appellant met with the city officials in charge of zoning and buildings to determine what steps, if any, could be taken to continue to operate the property as a rooming house. A zoning review officer of the city’s Bureau of Buildings, Zoning Enforcement Division, by letter to appellant dated May 8, 1987, verified that the use of the property as a 45-unit rooming house was a legal, nonconforming use. Appellant also contends that its officers were assured orally by city zoning officials that by obtaining a building permit for the renovation of the property and beginning renovations within a year of the date upon which the property ceased to operate as a rooming house, the property would retain its status as a legal, nonconforming use because the *541running of the one-year forfeiture period provided for in the zoning ordinance would be tolled. Such ordinance provides as follows:
When a nonconforming use of a major structure or a major structure and premises in combination is discontinued for a continuous period of one (1) year, the structure and premises in combination, shall not thereafter be used except in conformity with the regulations of the district in which it is located. Such restriction shall not apply if such cessation is as a direct result of governmental action impeding access to the premises.
Atlanta Zoning Ordinance § 16-24.005 (5).
In reliance upon these assurances, appellant purchased the property on September 30, 1987, and was issued a building permit on February 9, 1988 which allowed appellant to begin a major renovation of the property. Appellant has expended in excess of 1.6 million dollars to purchase, renovate, and bring the property back up to the city’s building code requirements. On May 17, 1988, appellant filed an application for a business license to operate the property as a rooming house. On June 22, 1988, the director of the city’s Bureau of Buildings affirmed that the property constituted a legal, nonconforming rooming house use, and, subject to completion of the work, the building was approved for use as a rooming house. The Ansley Park Civic Association filed an appeal of such ruling on July 12, 1988.
By letter dated July 22, 1988, the chief building inspector of the Bureau of Buildings, Building Inspection Division, informed the license review board that:
It was and is the decision of this office that obtaining the Building Permit and beginning the work eight months after the revocation [of the license to operate a rooming house at the location in question] allows the use of the building to continue as a non-conforming rooming house.
On July 22, 1988, the license review board recommended that appellant’s business license application be approved, and on August 1, 1988, the mayor approved the application to permit the operation of a rooming house on the property. Appellant received a temporary certificate of occupancy from the city on August 19, 1988, the same day that the Board of Zoning Adjustment held a public hearing on the appeal of the civic association and voted to revoke the legal, nonconforming use status of the property for use as a rooming house.
The property owner appealed the decision of the administrative board to the Superior Court of Fulton County. That court upheld the board’s decision, concluding that the nonconforming use terminated *542because the property owner was prohibited as a matter of law from utilizing the property as a boarding house for a period of one year.
The primary treatise on zoning law, Rathkopf’s The Law of Zoning and Planning, recognizes that:
[t]he most common ground upon which the loss of the right to use property in nonconformity was based in the early cases was that the right had been “abandoned.” In these cases, the term “abandonment” was construed to mean the intentional relinquishment of a known right to devote the property to a permitted nonconforming use, evidenced by an overt act or failure to act, sufficient to support the implication of such an intent.
A. Rathkopf and D. Rathkopf, Rathkopf’s The Law of Zoning and Planning, Vol. 4, § 51.08 at 130 (1990).
Because of the difficulties of proof inherent in establishing the existence or non-existence of “intent to abandon,” an objective standard as to when a property owner’s subjective state of mind evidenced an intent to abandon was often incorporated into the zoning ordinances themselves by way of discontinuance provisions which set forth a specific time period.
A discontinuance provision which specifically states that it operates to prevent and prohibit resumption of a nonconforming use after a specified period of time has elapsed, regardless of any reservation of an intent not to abandon. . ., removes the factor of intent to abandon; it operates even where there was no intent to abandon or even where there was an intent not to abandon.
(Emphasis in original.) Rathkopf, supra at 134.
Where an ordinánce sets forth a specific time period but contains nothing that negates the factor of intent to abandon, the expiration of the time period set forth in the ordinance has been construed by a majority of courts to merely raise a rebuttable presumption that there has been an intent to abandon the nonconforming use. Some proof of an overt act or failure to act is still required before there will be a finding of an intent to abandon the nonconforming use. Rathkopf, supra at 134-135; R. Anderson, American Law of Zoning 3d, Vol. 1, § 6.65 at 635-639. See also Rathkopf, supra at 139-143.
In Paer v. Guhl, 236 Ga. 768 (225 SE2d 261) (1976), this court recognized that the great majority of states in this country, Georgia included, equate non-use with abandonment and provide that abandonment is a question of intent. The ordinance involved here does not contain anything that negates the factor of intent and thus the *543time period set forth merely raises a rebuttable presumption. Appellant has presented ample evidence of a series of closely connected overt acts, occurring months prior to the expiration of the period specified in the ordinance, which rebut that presumption.
Appellant’s acts of obtaining the building permit, beginning renovations to satisfy building code requirements, applying for a business license, and obtaining a temporary certificate of occupancy, provide clear and convincing evidence of an intent not to abandon the nonconforming use. Such intent tolled the running of the forfeiture period. It might take appellant six months, 12 months or even longer to complete the renovations and to be in a position to reapply for a business license. The fact that appellant has no business license to operate the property as a rooming house, and could not apply for such license until one year after the date of the previous license’s revocation, is irrelevant so long as there is, as here, ample evidence of the owner’s intent not to abandon the nonconforming use prior to the expiration of the specified period. We hold that appellant continues to be entitled to the benefit of the nonconforming use of the property as a rooming house.

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur, except Weltner, Hunt and Benham, JJ., who dissent.