Hyatt v. Town of Lake Lure ( 2004 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 04-1102
PATRICIA HYATT,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
TOWN OF LAKE LURE; H. M. PLACE, III; TERRI
POTTS; BLAINE COX; GEORGE PRESSLEY; LEA
HULLINGER,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western
District of North Carolina, at Asheville. Lacy H. Thornburg,
District Judge. (CA-02-94-1)
Argued: September 28, 2004 Decided: November 10, 2004
Before WILKINSON and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges, and Roger W. TITUS,
United States District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting
by designation.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: James Thomas Davis, Forest City, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Sandra Moody King, RUSSELL & KING, Asheville, North
Carolina, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
See Local Rule 36(c).
PER CURIAM:
Patricia Hyatt set out to develop her lakeside property. She
believed that ordinances of the Town of Lake Lure permitted her to
do this. Town authorities disagreed. In response to adverse land
use decisions, Hyatt brought a panoply of federal and state
constitutional claims. Included were such questions as where she
could build an erosion-preventing seawall, whether she could
construct a boathouse, and the consequences of invading her
neighbors’ property while simultaneously violating the Town’s
zoning requirements. Constitutional provisions do not ordinarily
control such routine matters of local government administration.
We therefore affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment
for the Town on the federal constitutional claims. We additionally
affirm the grant of summary judgment as to the state law claims
because they also lack merit.
I.
The Town of Lake Lure, North Carolina (“Town”), acquired
ownership of its namesake, Lake Lure (“Lake”), in 1965. As part of
its regulation of local land use, and to protect the Lake, the Town
has adopted a number of ordinances. Most important among them, in
1992 it enacted its Lake Structures Regulations (“LSRs”) to govern
construction along the Lake and to require an anti-erosion seawall
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along the edge of the Lake for each lot with a lake structure. A
permit is required for any construction.
Appellant Patricia Hyatt acquired title to a lakefront parcel
in April 2001. Her property had suffered severe erosion at the
shoreline -- a previous owner stated that there had been more than
15 feet of erosion in the past decade. In June 2001 she applied
for, and was granted, a Lake Structure Permit to construct a
seawall and boathouse. She made specific representations as to
dimensions and took some very general plans to the Town for review
at this time. The Town also granted a Land Disturbance Permit for
the construction of the boathouse and a driveway.
Hyatt’s applications required her to accept conditions,
including that “structures are allowed on Lake Lure only by
permission of the town and the continued permission by the town to
allow a structure on the lake does not confer any rights of
ownership or possession.” She also had to acknowledge her
responsibility for any damage to adjacent property from erosion
caused by land disturbing activities.
In the fall of 2001, Hyatt’s neighbor informed the Town that
Hyatt’s seawall had encroached upon his property. The town
reviewed surveys and performed its own physical inspection before
concluding that he was correct -- she had invaded both of her
neighbors’ property. And by building her seawall too far into the
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Lake, and filling behind it, she had also encroached upon the
Town’s property.
The LSRs required that seawalls be built at 990 mean sea
level, which the regulations equated with the shoreline. One part
of the LSRs notes two methods for determining 990 MSL -- measuring
down five feet from manholes which should be at 995 MSL, or calling
and asking the Town. It prohibits filling in areas below the
shoreline. Another provision proscribes any fills without Town
approval. Hyatt made her own calculations and started work, such
that her boathouse would extend far into the Lake. She proceeded
to fill behind that point, leading to the complaint.
On November 21, 2001, the Town informed Hyatt of four LSR
infractions, penalized her $500 for each, and warned her of further
fines absent compliance. The violations concerned filling the
Lake, failing to locate her seawall at the shoreline as it existed
before the Lake was filled, locating the boathouse too far from the
shoreline, and encroaching onto her neighbor’s property. As the
district court noted, “Hyatt’s boathouse extended 43 feet out into
the lake as opposed to the 30 feet required by the ordinances and
the boathouse was not sufficiently far enough from the boundaries
of each of the lots adjacent to Hyatt’s property.” Hyatt v. Town
of Lake Lure, 314 F. Supp. 2d 562, 570 (W.D.N.C. 2003).
While considering the violations Hyatt’s neighbor had raised,
the Town inspected Hyatt’s boathouse, and concluded that it did not
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comply with the permit either. It was marginally too big, and
there was a deck top accessory structure that lacked a permit. In
any event, the Town extended the 30-day deadline to remedy the
violations and allowed Hyatt to appear at the Town Council on
January 14, 2002. That meeting concerned Hyatt's request for an
after-the-fact approval to fill a portion of the Lake and to waive
fines. On January 16, the Town denied her requests, telling her to
either repair the situation, or apply for variances from the Lake
Structures Appeals Board (“LSAB”). She sought the variances, and
the LSAB, finding no special justification, denied them. Hyatt
appealed to the Town Council, and was represented by her attorney.
On May 14, the Council heard her arguments, including those based
on the Constitution. It denied her requests.
State law allows those disappointed with land use decisions to
petition the state courts. Hyatt filed suit in North Carolina
state court, but stayed that suit to pursue her claims before a
federal tribunal. 314 F. Supp. 2d at 579. She brought suit
against the Town and a number of its officials in the Western
District of North Carolina. Both her federal and state claims
invoked procedural and substantive due process and equal
protection, based on the Town's enforcement against her of the
LSRs, especially the calculation of where the seawall should be
located. After protracted litigation over these and other claims,
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the district court ruled in favor of the Town on all points,
leading to this appeal.
II.
We turn first to Hyatt’s federal claims. We review the
district court’s dismissal of these claims de novo. Sylvia Dev.
Corp. v. Calvert County, 48 F.3d 810, 817 (4th Cir. 1995).
A.
Hyatt argues that the LSRs violate her right to substantive
due process because they are vague and arbitrary. In particular,
she claims that they provide for inconsistent methods of finding
990 mean sea level (MSL), the elevation at which she was to build
her seawall.
First, we note that vagueness claims are traditionally aimed
at statutes with such broad and capacious language that citizens
cannot discern what is expected of them. Here the ordinance states
that 990 MSL can be found either by measuring down five feet from
the manholes which are at 995 MSL, or “by calling the Town Office
for the lake level reading at the dam on that particular day.”
Both methods are “sufficiently clear [] that people of common
intelligence can determine the meaning of [their] terms.” Tri-
County Paving, Inc. v. Ashe County, 281 F.3d 430, 441 n.9 (4th Cir.
2002).
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The arguable inconsistency of the two methods is what Hyatt
challenges. But Hyatt cannot show that she followed either of
them. The district court found that “using either method, Hyatt’s
seawall was nowhere near the shoreline as it existed before the
construction.” 314 F. Supp. 2d at 574. We further agree with the
district court’s conclusion that “[t]he problem in this case is not
that Hyatt could not ascertain the meaning of the regulation but
that she constructed her seawall in either total disregard or
without any consideration thereof.” Id. at 576. Hyatt’s elaborate
discussion of horizontal and vertical distances do not alter the
conclusion that she failed to follow either method of finding 990
MSL. Under such circumstances, a vagueness challenge to the LSRs
cannot proceed.
Moreover, it is hardly insignificant that the LSR regulations
explicitly invited Hyatt to contact the Town Office. This “safe
harbor” provided Hyatt an avenue of clarification which she
rejected. Hyatt’s “ability to clarify the meaning of the
regulation by [her] own inquiry, or by resort to an administrative
process,” Village of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates,
Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 498 (1982), further undermines her vagueness
claim.
“The degree of vagueness that the Constitution
tolerates . . . depends in part on the nature of the enactment.”
Id. Land use enactments are particularly resistant to facial
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vagueness challenges, because zoning law is often given specific
content through the very planning and permitting process that Hyatt
sought to circumvent. The Constitution, however, was not intended
to displace local zoning procedures. Rather, we have held that
“[r]esolving the routine land-use disputes that inevitably and
constantly arise among developers, local residents, and municipal
officials is simply not the business of the federal courts. There
is no sanction for casual federal intervention into what ‘has
always been an intensely local area of the law.’” Gardner v.
Baltimore, 969 F.2d 63, 67 (4th Cir. 1992) (quoting Rose, Planning
and Dealing: Piecemeal Land Controls as a Problem of Local
Legitimacy, 71 Calif. L. Rev. 839, 839 (1983)).
We thus affirm the district court’s rejection of Hyatt’s
vagueness and substantive due process claims.
B.
Hyatt also argues that the Town deprived her of procedural due
process in requiring her to comply with the Notice of Violation and
in denying her requests for variances. To succeed, Hyatt must
demonstrate that she had a property interest which the Town
deprived her of without due process of law. Sylvia, 48 F.3d at
826. But the procedures employed here satisfied due process.
After all, “[t]he procedures due in zoning cases, and by analogy
due in cases such as this one involving regulation of land use
through general police powers, are not extensive.” Tri-County, 281
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F.3d at 436 (citing City of Eastlake v. Forest City Enters., Inc.,
426 U.S. 668 (1976)).
As in Tri-County, Hyatt “was provided with more than
constitutionally adequate pre-and-postdeprivation process in this
case. [Hyatt] failed to take advantage of much of it. And when
[she] did take advantage of the available process, the outcome was
not what [she] had hoped for. But procedural due process does not
require certain results -- it requires only fair and adequate
procedural protections.” Tri-County, 281 F.3d at 436. Hyatt’s
procedural opportunities, both pre-and-postdeprivation, were ample.
After having been found by Town officials to be out of compliance
with her permit and the LSRs, Hyatt was able to appeal to the Town
Council. The Notice of Violation itself stated as much, and Hyatt
seized the opportunity, as she should have. Her two opportunities
to address the Town Council and the chance to appear before and
seek variances from the LSAB show that hers is not one of the cases
in which a municipality disregarded the fundamentals of fair
process. Hyatt was represented by counsel, and Town officials
considered her requests at some length. “[C]ertainly conducting
open community meetings and giving affected parties the opportunity
to speak on behalf of their project is constitutionally
sufficient.” Id. at 437.
In addition, Hyatt had the opportunity to pursue her case in
state court. She chose to stay her state action, however. But
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this again shows an unfortunate failure to grasp the import of
circuit precedent. Tri-County involved a very similar procedural
history, with claims parallel to Hyatt’s. In concluding that TCP
did not state a claim for a federal due process challenge, we
described a variety of state court remedies that TCP could have
sought. We noted, however, that “TCP chose not to pursue any of
these avenues of relief in the state courts. It therefore cannot
complain now that the state did not provide adequate procedures.”
Id. at 438. Hyatt is similarly disabled from challenging
successfully the very remedies she chose not to pursue.
C.
Hyatt also claims that the Town violated her right to equal
protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment. She argues
that the Town subjected her to unprecedented scrutiny, and that it
singled her out by taking up her neighbor’s cause, using public
power to vindicate his private interests. Equal protection claims
like Hyatt’s are reviewed under a rational basis standard, and fail
if a challenged classification was rationally related to a
legitimate governmental objective. FCC v. Beach Communications,
Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 313 (1993); Tri-County, 281 F.3d at 438-39.
Here the legitimate governmental purposes are self-evident.
The Town has both the right and the duty to protect the environment
and prevent overuse of the Lake. Regulations to determine each
property owner’s right to erect lakeside structures promote the
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value of predictability in development for both residents and the
Town.
The Town’s actions in applying the ordinances to Hyatt were
rationally related to such purposes. Limiting fills and
development to the amount allowed by a permit serves to limit
erosion and Lake shrinkage.
Nor was Hyatt, as she alleged, treated differently from
others. See Village of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562 (2000)
(per curiam). “To prove that a statute has been administered or
enforced discriminatorily, more must be shown than the fact that a
benefit was denied to one person while conferred on another.”
Sylvia, 48 F.3d at 819. Hyatt fails to show even this. The Town,
by contrast, has shown that others have been penalized for
violating the LSRs. Indeed, the opposite of what Hyatt alleges is
true: the LSAB concluded that were it to grant variances to Hyatt,
with no extraordinary circumstances, it would “confer on [Hyatt]
special privileges that are denied to other owners in the same
district in which the property is located.” Not every property can
have the precise seawall or boathouse its owner desires. The
environmentally sound and aesthetically pleasing preservation of
the Lake justifies neutral regulations as to who can build, and how
much.
In sum, we find no merit in Hyatt’s equal protection claims.
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D.
We affirm the grant of summary judgment as to Hyatt’s
remaining claims for the reasons given by the district court. We
specifically decline to consider the merits of the challenge to the
Sedimentation Control Ordinances, because Hyatt failed to
adequately raise the issue in district court.
III.
Hyatt’s federal claims have also been brought under
corresponding provisions of the North Carolina Constitution. But
“North Carolina courts have consistently interpreted the due
process and equal protection clauses of the North Carolina
Constitution as synonymous with their Fourteenth Amendment
counterparts.” Tri-County, 281 F.3d at 435 n.6. In Tri-County,
the plaintiff alleged largely undifferentiated federal and North
Carolina constitutional questions. Hyatt has likewise not shown
any real distinction between her state and federal claims.
For these reasons, and for those given by the district court,
we affirm the dismissal of the state law claims.
IV.
The judgment of the trial court is in all respects
AFFIRMED.
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