Agenda - Planning Commission - 01/31/2013 - Special

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Zoning Bulletin October 10, 2012 1 Volume 6 I Issue 19 The court also rejected the County's argument that it was authorized to "adopt and enforce" the APFO under Session Law 2004-39. The court found the Session Law did not include the word "adopt." And the court found the Session Law was actually an effort to address confusion between the County and several municipalities regarding enforcement of the APFO. Further, the court found that the General Assembly already had rejected requests by an- other county to authorize imposition of school impact fees when the Session Law was enacted. Case Note: In its decision, the court also observed that the APFO's revenue generation character- istics conflicted with North Carolina's "current approach to funding public education." The court noted that the General Assembly has authorized counties to obtain revenue for public schools and other services from various sources, leaving the burden of finding public schools spread among a large number of individuals, includ- ing county residents and those traveling through or doing business in that county. Conversely, the court observed that the APFO concentrated the majority of the financial burden for school construction on residential developers. "Without express- ing an opinion on the policy merits of APFOs," the court "stress fed] that absent specific authority from the General Assembly, APFOs that effectively require develop- ers to pay an adequate public facilities fee to obtain development approval are invalid as a matter of law." Preexisting Use —County rezones property to agricultural, prohibiting uses such as mining Despite not actively mining the rezoned property, property owner argues its actions established a preexisting use for mining Citation: Ready Mix, USA, LLC v. Jefferson County, 2012 WL 3757025 (Tenn. 2012) TENNESSEE (08/30/12)—This case addressed the issue of whether a prop- erty owner's activities established a preexisting use for mine operations on land, thus qualifying the use of the property for mining for protection under the state's "grandfather" statute which permits a preexisting nonconforming business to continue to operate despite a zone change. The Background/Facts: In 1971, American Smelting and Refining Company ("ASARCO") acquired approximately 300 acres of land (the "Prop- erty") in Jefferson County, Tennessee (the "County"). At that time, the future aggregate mineral reserves on the Property were estimated at 149 to 150 mil- © 2012 Thomson Reuters 9