Court Opinion

ID: 9846888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:50:04.762024+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:56.683775
License: Public Domain

Fletcher, Presiding Justice.
This rezoning case involves 9.35 acres of property at the northwest corner of Phipps Boulevard and Lenox Road in the city of Atlanta. TAP Associates, a limited partnership, sought to rezone the land from residential to mixed-use development. The city council denied the application, and the developer appealed. Following a bench trial, the trial court found unconstitutional the city’s existing zoning and the proposed zoning in the city’s Comprehensive Development Plan. We granted the city’s discretionary application to appeal to consider whether the trial court correctly rejected the city’s all-residential zoning of TAP’s property. Because we conclude that the developer has not met its burden of proving that the city’s zoning presents a significant loss that is unjustified by any public benefit, we reverse.
FACTS
The 9.35-acre tract is bounded on the east by Phipps Boulevard across from Phipps Plaza mall; on the south by Lenox Road, which was formerly known as the Buckhead Loop; on the north by a four-story apartment complex, Estate at Phipps, and a 22-story condominium tower, Regency Park; and on the west by North Stratford Road, a street of single-family residences in the North Buckhead neighborhood. TAP bought the property in 1990 as part of a larger tract, but subsequently sold the northern portions to other developers. Although TAP’s remaining property is currently zoned as single-family residential, the city has stipulated that this zoning designation is outdated. In its Comprehensive Development Plan, the city has designated 7.27 acres of TAP’s property that fronts Phipps Boulevard and Lenox Road as high-density or very-high density residential and the remaining 2.08 acres that front North Stratford Road as single-family residential.
TAP filed its application in 1997 to rezone the 9.35 acres from residential to a mixed-use development. It proposed building two 200-unit residential buildings, a 400-room hotel, a free-standing restaurant, and two office buildings of 14 and 18 stories. In support of its application, TAP contended that the designation of the property for high-density and very high-density residential use in the Comprehensive Development Plan was outdated. The Atlanta Zoning Review Board and the city council’s zoning committee recommended denying the rezoning application as inconsistent with the city’s land use plan. Following their recommendations, the city council voted to deny TAP’s rezoning application. TAP then filed this lawsuit seeking to *682have the city’s all-residential zoning declared unconstitutional and to require the city to rezone the property for mixed use.
LAND USE PLANNING IN ATLANTA
Any rezoning of property in Atlanta must be consistent with the land use plan in its Comprehensive Development Plan.1 The CDP is revised annually, adopted as an ordinance by the city council, and takes precedence over the city’s zoning ordinance.
The 1997 CDP, which was in effect when TAP filed its rezoning application, states the preservation of neighborhoods as its first general policy. Additional general policies are to encourage mixed-use development around transit stations and major transportation intersections and encourage medium and high-density residential uses.
Among the specific land use policies for the neighborhood planning unit that includes North Buckhead is the policy to keep residential the area north of Lenox Road along Phipps Boulevard. The 1997 and 2000 plans specifically state the following policy:
Maintain the Buckhead Loop/Wieuca Road Connector [Phipps Boulevard] as the firm boundary between residential land uses north of the boundary and mixed uses south of the boundary. Permit no nonresidential uses to encroach upon the single-family uses of the neighborhood north of the Buckhead Loop/Wieuca Road Connector.
Other specific policies in the 1997 and 2000 plans seek to protect the boundaries of the single-family and low-density residential neighborhoods, including North Buckhead; encourage low-density, multifamily housing as transition zones between single-family areas and adjacent higher density areas; and foster further development and high-density residential and mixed uses in the areas around MARTA stations.
The 1993 Buckhead Transit Station Area Development Study also recommends that the city limit land use in the northeast quadrant of the Buckhead Loop and Georgia 400 to residential use. To implement this policy, the study states that the city should limit high-density residential use to land with access to the Wieuca Connector and should retain the single-family characteristics of North Stratford Road.
*683LEGAL STANDARD IN REZONING CASES
A zoning ordinance is presumed to be valid.2 In a rezoning action, the only question is the constitutionality of the existing zoning on the property.3 The property owner has the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that (1) the existing zoning presents a significant detriment to the landowner and (2) the existing zoning is not substantially related to the public health, safety, morality, and welfare.4 If the property owner meets its burden, then the governing authority must introduce evidence showing the existing zoning is reasonably related to the public health, safety, and welfare.5 Once the city justifies its zoning as reasonably related to the public interest, the trial court must weigh the public benefit of the existing zoning against the detriment to the property owner. When the validity of the legislative classification for zoning purposes is fairly debatable, the legislative judgment must be allowed to control.6
In this case, the trial court found that the plaintiff had proven by clear and convincing evidence that the city’s all-residential zoning constitutes a significant detriment to the property owner and is unsubstantially related to the public health, safety, morality, and welfare and that the city had failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that its existing or proposed zoning was reasonably related to the public health, safety, morality, and welfare. In reviewing the trial court’s order, we must accept its factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous, but owe no deference to the trial court’s legal conclusion that the existing zoning classification is unconstitutional.7
1. Significant Detriment to the Landowner
None of the trial court’s factual findings concerning the entire tract’s lack of economic feasibility deal separately with the 2.08-acre tract designated for single-family residential housing. The testimony of appraisers for both TAP and the city shows that the value of the property on North Stratford when zoned for single-family homes is the same as similarly situated property in other north Atlanta neighborhoods. The TAP appraiser valued the property on North Stratford *684at $490,000 based on comparisons to the sales of other lots in the same market area. As part of his evaluation, he assumed that two 14-story buildings and one 25-story building would be built on the remaining portion of TAP’s property. Similarly, the city’s appraiser testified that the four potential lots were valued at $125,000 each. Thus, there was no showing at trial that TAP has suffered a significant loss concerning the property zoned single family.
In addition, a resident who lives across from the DOT detention pond on North Stratford testified about the viability of his street, including its south end, for single families. Although TAP’s president testified that there had been no buyers interested in the vacant property on North Stratford, he admitted that the company had never made any effort to market it as single family lots, such as platting the property, listing it with a residential real estate firm, or placing for sale signs on North Stratford Road. A property owner’s inability to sell its property under the current zoning classification cannot form the basis for a finding of significant detriment if the property owner has failed to make any effort to market or sell the property and thus make it economically feasible under its current classification.8 Based on this evidence, we conclude that the trial court erred in finding that TAP presented clear and convincing evidence of a significant detriment concerning the property designated as single-family residential on North Stratford Road.
2. Relationship of Zoning to the Public Interest
The public benefit issue here, as in all rezoning cases, is whether the city’s choice of a zoning classification bears a substantial relationship to the public interest.9 The trial court’s order, however, fails to address whether the city’s designation of TAP’s property as solely residential is substantially related to the public health, safety, and welfare.
Experts for both TAP and the city agreed that protecting single-family homes in the city is in the public interest. The city’s expert, a former city zoning administrator, described Atlanta’s single-family neighborhoods as an “irreplaceable resource.” A TAP expert witness on urban design testified that having single-family lots on the east side of North Stratford would protect the existing single-family lots across the street on the west side. The experts also testified about the desirability of providing buffers and transitions from commercial to *685high-density residential to single-family residential areas, which is what the city has accomplished through its zoning of TAP’s property.
Moreover, the city’s zoning decision is consistent with the policies and long-range planning goals for the area as adopted in the comprehensive development plans and the Buckhead transit station report. These development proposals were adopted after extensive study and often contentious debate among the interested parties, including city planners, the business community, and neighborhood residents, about the best plan for managing the growth and development of the area.
The fact that TAP presented evidence that its proposed mixed-use development would also protect the single-family neighborhood and provide other possible advantages to the public is irrelevant. The issue is not whether the city could have made a different decision or better designation in zoning TAP’s property, but whether the choice that it did make benefits the public in a substantial way.10 Because the evidence at trial showed that the city’s current designation of TAP’s property as high-density, very high-density, and single-family residential is justified by the public’s valid interest in protecting Atlanta’s neighborhoods, the trial court erred in finding that TAP met its burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence on the public benefit issue.

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur, except Hunstein, Carley, and Thompson, JJ, who dissent.

 See Moore v. Maloney, 253 Ga. 504, 507 (321 SE2d 335) (1984).

 Guhl v. Holcomb Bridge Rd. Corp., 238 Ga. 322, 323 (232 SE2d 830) (1977).

 See DeKalb County v. Dobson, 267 Ga. 624, 626 (482 SE2d 239) (1997).

 See Gwinnett County v. Davis, 268 Ga. 653, 654 (492 SE2d 523) (1997); Gradous v. Board of Comm’rs, 256 Ga. 469, 471 (349 SE2d 707) (1986).

 See City of Roswell v. Heavy Machines Co., 256 Ga. 472, 474 (349 SE2d 743) (1986); Gradous, 256 Ga. at 471.

 See Fulton County v. Wallace, 260 Ga. 358, 361 (393 SE2d 241) (1990).

 See Gwinnett County v. Davis, 268 Ga. at 654.

 See Holy Cross Lutheran Church v. Clayton County, 257 Ga. 21, 22 (354 SE2d 151) (1987); DeKalb County v. Blalock Machinery & Equipment Co., 247 Ga. 671, 672 (278 SE2d 374) (1981).

 See Holy Cross, 257 Ga. at 23.

 See Holy Cross, 257 Ga. at 23 (relying on evidence of “benefit to the public in preserving the existing residential zoning... to maintain the integrity of the adjoining residential neighborhood”).