Custom Land Development, Inc. v. Town of Coopertown and Coopertown Board of Zoning Appeals

This is a zoning case. The appellant landowner owns a tract of land that it sought to resume using as a sanitary landfill. The appellees are the newly-incorporated town in which the landfill is located and the town’s zoning board. In 1996, the landowner and the county in which the town and landfill are located resolved a dispute in which the landfill was deemed a legally permitted nonconforming use under the county zoning ordinance. In 2002, the landowner sought a building permit from the town planning commission. The town planning commission refused to grant the permit until the landowner obtained a determination from the town zoning board that the landfill was a legally permitted non-conforming use under the town’s newly-enacted zoning ordinances. The town zoning board determined that the landfill was not a legally permitted nonconforming use under the town zoning ordinances because the landowner had discontinued its nonconforming use of the landfill for longer than one year. Consequently, no permit was issued. The landowner unsuccessfully appealed the ruling to the town zoning appeals board. The landowner then appealed the decision of the zoning appeals board to the trial court. The trial court affirmed the ruling of the zoning appeals board. We affirm, finding that the use of the property as a landfill had been discontinued for more than one year and thus the landfill did not fall within the nonconforming use exception to the town’s zoning ordinance.