## Facts

- A landowner agreed to sell roughly 12 acres of a 44-acre tract to a developer for a residential project in Fairmont, West Virginia.
- The tract included areas zoned for single-family residences and multifamily use.
- The developer proposed eight single-family houses and 26 duplexes (52 units), for a total of 60 units.
- The developer planned to sell the completed development to a local housing authority, which would purchase with federal funds and select occupants from low-income applicants.
- The developer sought preliminary subdivision-plat approval from the city planning and zoning commission under the state planning statute and the city subdivision ordinance.
- At a public hearing, nearby residents strongly opposed the project, asserting that renters would not maintain property, that property values would fall, and expressing hostility toward public-housing tenants; residents also raised traffic, school-capacity, and safety concerns.
- The commission denied the plat, initially citing technical defects; after the developer corrected those defects and resubmitted, the commission again unanimously denied approval, relying primarily on neighborhood opposition and speculative impacts on property values and the expected tenant population.
- The record showed the plat satisfied the objective, technical requirements specified by the enabling statute and the subdivision ordinance.

## Issues

1. Whether a planning and zoning commission may deny subdivision-plat approval for a proposal that satisfies all objective requirements of the enabling statute and subdivision ordinance based on neighborhood opposition and generalized concerns about low-income/public housing and property values.
2. Whether such a denial, resting on factors not authorized by the governing statute or ordinance, is arbitrary and capricious and therefore unlawful on judicial review.

## Decision

- The state supreme court reversed the circuit court judgment that had affirmed the commission’s denial.
- The court held the commission lacked authority to deny a compliant plat based on extra-ordinance, subjective considerations such as generalized fears about renters or speculative property-value effects.
- The court concluded the denial was arbitrary and capricious because the stated reasons were not grounded in the governing statutory and ordinance criteria.
- The case was remanded with instructions consistent with the opinion, effectively requiring approval absent a valid, criteria-based deficiency.

## Legal Principles

- Local planning and zoning bodies are administrative entities limited to powers and standards granted by enabling statutes and duly adopted ordinances.
- Subdivision-plat review must be based on the objective criteria expressly stated in the applicable statute and subdivision ordinance.
- When an applicant meets all authorized plat-approval requirements, the commission’s duty to approve is essentially ministerial; denial cannot rest on uncodified considerations.
- Neighborhood opposition, stereotypes about renters, and speculative assertions about property-value decline are not lawful grounds for denial when not included in the governing approval standards.
- A land-use decision is arbitrary and capricious when it rejects a compliant application based on irrelevant or unauthorized factors rather than substantial evidence tied to the applicable legal criteria.

## Conclusion

The court set aside the commission’s denial of subdivision-plat approval because the proposal satisfied the objective requirements of the governing statute and ordinance, and the commission improperly relied on neighborhood hostility and speculative, uncodified concerns about public housing and property values.


Kaufman v. Planning & Zoning Comm'n of Fairmont, 298 S.E.2d 148 (W. Va. 1982)