Twenty-five landowners filed suit against the county Jan. 4, in response to the Board of Supervisors' Dec. 5 decision to downzone the western two-thirds of the county.
The board approved a modified version of the plan it had been working on since 2005, when the Virginia Supreme Court overturned the 2003 zoning created by the previous board over issues with the county's public notices on the zoning changes.
The 25 lawsuits is a much smaller number than the around 200 lawsuits brought forth after the 2003 downzoning was enacted. Most of the current lawsuits have been filed on behalf of families who own smaller plots of land.
"We are not talking about a large portion of the land," Mari M. Hommel, an attorney from Reed Smith, representing some of the landowners, said. "Each one of our clients would like to have their property rights."
Hommel said one plaintiff, who was involved in litigation during the last round of lawsuits, has been trying to do a family subdivision to create three lots out of their 11 acre parcel.
The final approved plan, which had been modified with amendments proposed by Supervisor Mick Staton (R-Sugarland Run), the rural west from zoning that allowed one home per three acres. Under Staton's amendments, landowners were allowed to cluster development at a density of one residential unit per five acres in the northern portion of the rural west and to cluster development in the southern portion at one unit per 15 acres. In addition, Staton's proposal provided the option for landowners to divide in either 10- or five-acre parcels and removes the rezoning option.
Hommel said that while each lawsuit would not necessarily require the entire downzoning be overturned, the plaintiffs are prepared to do what they need to in order to retain their property rights.
"Most of the cases were filed on behalf of landowners who had applications in process for years most of them," Hommel said. "They were cut short in the process."
Many of the landowners have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to finish their subdivision applications, Hommel said, which was the driving force behind the lawsuits.
"They are not in it for anything other than to recover the investment they have made so far," she said. "We are talking about people who were on the same track as the rest of [the people who became vested under the previous zoning.] It is about a sense of fairness."
The next step in the lawsuits is for the Board of Supervisors to file a response with the Circuit Court, Hommel said. Responses can range from admission of guilt, denial, a procedural item that attempts to throw the lawsuits out or to ask for a time extension.
"There is no way to know what they will do," Hommel said.
During the last round of legal activity, the county asked for all of the lawsuits to be consolidated into one suit, something that could happen again.
"The [threshold] for the ability of the court to consider consolidation is six cases," Hommel said. "So it is certainly possible."
The county has 21 days to file its response with the court.