## Facts

- Eduardo Villarreal and Rosa Adriana Villarreal owned property in Laredo, Texas that was zoned **B-1 (limited commercial)**, a classification that did not permit a communications tower as a conforming use.
- The City of Laredo informed the Villarreals that the communications tower on their property was a **nonconforming use** under the city’s zoning code.
- The Villarreals sought city approval to keep the tower. The City Council **denied** their request to rezone the property to a category that would allow towers as of right.
- Instead, the City granted the Villarreals a **Conditional Use Permit (CUP)** that allowed them to continue using the existing tower as a conditional use so long as they satisfied specified conditions.
- The CUP included multiple requirements (such as limits and ongoing submissions) intended to bring the existing nonconforming tower into the permitted conditional-use framework.
- One CUP condition required that the Villarreals provide **plans sealed by a safety engineer**; the Villarreals later found they could not obtain the engineer’s seal for the existing tower (because of the tower’s condition/configuration and the number of antennas).
- Because they could not meet all CUP conditions with the existing structure, the Villarreals decided to **remove the current tower and construct a new tower** that would satisfy the CUP’s conditions.
- The City took the position that the CUP was granted to bring the **existing** tower into compliance and that using the CUP for a replacement tower would be a prohibited **“transfer,”** because the CUP stated that it **“is not transferable.”**
- The Villarreals filed a declaratory-judgment action seeking a ruling that the CUP allowed construction of the replacement tower on the same property, and the **trial court ruled for the Villarreals.**
- The City appealed to the Texas Court of Appeals, San Antonio.

## Issues

1. Whether the CUP’s express statement that it “is not transferable” prevented the Villarreals from using that CUP to authorize construction of a **replacement** communications tower on the same property.
2. Whether the trial court erred by interpreting the CUP as authorizing a new tower rather than limiting the CUP to bringing the **existing** nonconforming tower within the permit’s conditions.

## Decision

- The court of appeals **reversed** the trial court’s judgment.
- The court held that using the CUP to construct a **new** tower in place of the old one was an impermissible **transfer** under the CUP’s nontransferability condition.
- The court concluded the CUP was issued as a limited approval tied to the existing nonconforming tower and its specified conditions, not as open-ended authorization to substitute a different structure later.
- The court gave serious consideration to the City’s reasonable construction of the permit and ordinance in the course of enforcing the zoning scheme.
- The court rendered judgment for the City, rejecting the declaration that the existing CUP authorized the replacement tower.

## Legal Principles

- A conditional use permit is a limited authorization granted as an exception to otherwise applicable zoning restrictions; the permit’s **express conditions** control the scope of what is allowed.
- Courts interpret permit and ordinance language as a question of law, using ordinary meaning and the permit’s context within the zoning system.
- A municipality’s reasonable construction of its zoning instruments, made by the officials charged with enforcement, is entitled to **serious consideration** when it does not conflict with the text.
- A nontransferability clause in a CUP can restrict not only changes in ownership or location, but also an attempt to apply the permit to a materially different structure than the one for which the permit was issued.
- A landowner seeking to rely on a CUP bears the risk of acting outside the permit’s stated scope; courts will not expand a CUP by implication when the authorization is framed narrowly.

## Conclusion

The Texas Court of Appeals held that the Villarreals’ nontransferable CUP was granted to bring their existing nonconforming communications tower within specified conditions and could not be used to authorize construction of a replacement tower; building a new tower would exceed the CUP’s limited scope and would require separate approval from the City.


City of Laredo v. Villarreal, 81 S.W.3d 865 (2002)