Supreme Court refuses down-zoning appeal
By Shannon Sollinger
The Supreme Court of Virginia has declined to hear an appeal of a land-use case from Loudoun involving the 2006 down-zoning and the Loudoun Times-Mirror.
In November 2007, Circuit Court Judge Thomas D. Horne ruled that the Times-Mirror met all legal requirements of Virginia law when it carried the county's advertisements of the proposed changes to the zoning ordinance and map.
In May 2008, Little Piney Run Estates (one of 25 plaintiffs who went to court to challenge the down zoning) dropped all its other complaints in order to go to the Supreme Court with an appeal of Horne's ruling.
The charge was that the Times-Mirror, which had recently converted from paid to free circulation, did not have the required second-class permit to carry the advertising.
Horne ruled that the Times-Mirror met all legal requirements to carry the advertising: It had a bona fide list of paying subscribers; it had been published and circulated at least once a week for 24 consecutive weeks for the dissemination of news of a general or legal character; it had a general circulation area in which the notice was required to be published; it was printed in English; and it had a second-class mailing permit from the U.S. Postal Service.
Of the original 25 plaintiffs, five still have active cases challenging the 2006 down-zoning. Judge Horne has dismissed charges that the rezoning was piecemeal and exclusionary. The five are still arguing the rezoning was arbitrary and capricious. No trial date has been set.