## Facts

- Cerro Gordo County adopted a comprehensive zoning ordinance effective June 4, 1962.
- Defendants operated Chazen’s Auto Parts, an automobile-wrecking/junkyard business, on rural land before the ordinance took effect.
- The ordinance zoned the property as Zone A (Agricultural District), where automobile wrecking and junkyards were nonconforming uses.
- The ordinance generally allowed lawful nonconforming uses to continue, but specifically required any nonconforming automobile wrecking or junkyard to become unlawful and be discontinued within five years of the ordinance’s effective date.
- Defendants intentionally continued operating the wrecking yard beyond the five-year period.
- Enforcement would terminate the business on the site without payment of compensation.

## Issues

1. Whether a county zoning ordinance may constitutionally require termination of an existing nonconforming automobile-wrecking/junkyard use after a five-year amortization period without compensation.
2. Whether applying such an amortization provision deprives the owners of property without due process of law.

## Decision

- The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decree enjoining continued operation of the wrecking yard after expiration of the five-year period.
- The court held the amortization provision was a constitutional exercise of the county’s police power.
- The court rejected the claim that the provision necessarily constituted a compensable taking or a due process violation.

## Legal Principles

- Zoning is a police-power regulation aimed at protecting health, safety, morals, and general welfare.
- A nonconforming use may be required to terminate after a reasonable amortization period when the phase-out is reasonably related to legitimate zoning objectives.
- The constitutionality of amortization turns on reasonableness, including the nature of the use, the public purpose served, and the owner’s opportunity over time to recoup investment and adjust.
- A regulation that restricts or prohibits a disfavored land use, without physical appropriation of property, may be upheld without compensation if it is reasonable and not confiscatory.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Cerro Gordo County’s five-year amortization requirement for nonconforming automobile-wrecking and junkyard uses, concluding that phasing out the use without compensation was a reasonable police-power measure and did not violate due process.


Bd. of Supervisors of Cerro Gordo Cnty. v. Miller, 170 N.W.2d 358 (Iowa 1969)