Court Opinion

ID: 9563006
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:35:58.214161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:40.448601
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Frankum, Justice.
In a vigorous motion for rehearing counsel for the appellees insist that this court overlooked their principal contention that the existence of a municipal ordinance zoning the property in question for any use was not proven. This court did not overlook this contention of the appellees. Hoivever, counsel for the appellees in making this contention evidently overlook the fact that both in their pleadings and in the trial of the case before the judge they recognized that the property in question had in fact been zoned by the city for commercial use and that under that zoning the erection of apartment units on the property is not permitted. The relief sought with respect to the mayor and council was that the property be “rezoned,” and upon the trial counsel for the appellees stated to the court, “I am willing for Your Honor to consider the map,” which they now contend was not properly proved. The map which was sent up with the record to this court contains a certificate by Walter P. Kidd, City Clerk, that it is “the ‘official zoning map of the City of East Point, Georgia’ referred to in Section 24-52 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of East Point, which map was adopted by the City Council of said city on May 2, 1960 as a part of ‘the zoning ordinance of the City of East Point, Georgia.’ ” The section of the Code of Ordinances of the City of East Point referred to in the certificate is the same section referred to in appellees’ complaint and quoted therein. The appellees admitted the existence of the ordinance in their complaint and their contention with respect to the ordinance must be reduced merely to a contention that the ordinance, while adopted by the city, is void. It is thus unnecessary to decide whether the certificate attached to the map was sufficient proof that the map was the official zoning map of the City of East Point.
As we have said, the appellees ask that the court order that their property be “rezoned.” The prefix “re-” means “again, *160anew, over again.” Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, p. 1209 (1966 Ed.). When that prefix is applied to the word zone it means to zone again or to zone anew, and property cannot be zoned again or zoned anew unless it has once been zoned. In view of the admissions of the appellees in their pleadings and in open court, the trial judge was clearly authorized to find, if not required to find, that the property had been zoned. His order that it be “rezoned” shows without question that he did so find. He could not order rezoning under the authorities which we cited in the opinion, and since he did not find the ordianance void as applied to the appellees’ property so as to bring the case within the purview of the Tuggle case he was not authorized in the face of zoning prohibiting the erection of apartments to mandamus the building inspector to issue a permit for the erection of apartments.

Rehearing denied.

All the Justices concur.