## Facts

- The Town adopted a zoning ordinance in 1989 establishing zoning classifications and enforcement procedures.
- The Town had not adopted a comprehensive plan before enacting the 1989 zoning ordinance.
- In 1990, a developer group obtained a zoning permit to build low- and moderate-income apartment buildings on its land in the Town.
- In 1993, the Town amended the zoning ordinance to require a special use permit for buildings with more than six residential units.
- In 1994, the developer sought a building permit from the county building inspector based on the 1990 zoning permit.
- The building inspector denied the building permit, asserting the developer had to resubmit the project for zoning approval under the 1993 amendment.
- The developer sued for declaratory relief (vested rights or, alternatively, invalidity of the ordinance and amendments) and sought mandamus compelling issuance of the building permit.
- The trial court declared the zoning ordinance void ab initio for failure to adopt a comprehensive plan and later issued mandamus ordering the building inspector to issue the building permit upon payment of the fee.

## Issues

1. Whether the Town’s zoning ordinance and its amendments were void because the Town adopted them without first adopting a comprehensive plan required by statute.
2. If the ordinance was void, whether mandamus could compel the building inspector to issue a building permit.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed the declaratory judgment that the Town’s 1989 zoning ordinance and the 1993 amendment were void ab initio due to the absence of a statutorily required comprehensive plan.
- The Court reversed the issuance of mandamus compelling the building inspector to issue a building permit.
- The case was resolved without reaching the developer’s alternative vested-rights theory because invalidity of the ordinance was dispositive of the ordinance’s legal effect.

## Legal Principles

- When enabling statutes require a comprehensive plan as a prerequisite to zoning, a locality lacks authority to enact a zoning ordinance absent that plan; such an ordinance is ultra vires and void ab initio.
- A void ab initio zoning ordinance has no legal effect and cannot be relied upon by either the locality or the landowner as a source of enforceable rights or restrictions.
- Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy available only to enforce a purely ministerial duty where the petitioner shows a clear legal right to the requested act and a corresponding legal duty to perform it.
- A landowner cannot establish a clear legal right to a building permit by relying on standards contained in a zoning ordinance that is void ab initio; mandamus will not lie on that basis.

## Conclusion

The court held that a zoning ordinance enacted without the statutorily required comprehensive plan is void from inception, but it also held that this invalidity does not automatically entitle a developer to a building permit through mandamus because the developer must still show a clear legal right and a corresponding ministerial duty to issue the permit.


Town of Jonesville v. Powell Valley Vill. Ltd. P’ship, 254 Va. 70, 487 S.E.2d 207 (Va. 1997)