- Claymont challenged Wildwood’s SCOD ordinance as unconstitutional
- Missouri appellate court reversed dismissal of the case
- Ordinances allegedly disrupted approved development plans
- Court held pre-enforcement constitutional claims were ripe
A petition filed by a development company challenging the constitutionality of city ordinances relating to real estate development was ripe for adjudication, the Eastern District of the Missouri Court of Appeals ruled on June 24, reversing dismissal.
In 1999, Claymont Development began working with the City of Wildwood to develop homes on a property known as Strecker Forest.
The city approved a residential development plan in 2007 and since that time, Claymont has invested over a million dollars in reliance on the expectation that it could develop Strecker Forest as a residential subdivision.
In late 2020, the city enacted the Special Circumstances Overlay District (SCOD), subjecting land use within the SCOD to additional regulations beyond the city’s other zoning rules. The city followed up in 2022 with another ordinance that placed Strecker Forest within the SCOD.
Claymont filed a petition seeking a declaratory judgment that the SCOD ordinance is unconstitutional on its face and as applied to Strecker Forest. The company alleged that the procedures and requirements set out in the SCOD ordinance are “onerous, cost prohibitive, [] subjective and vague” and thereby prevent “any effective use of Strecker Forest as a residential development.”
The city filed a motion to dismiss the petition, arguing that Claymont’s claims were not ripe for adjudication because it had not applied for approval of its Strecker Forest development plans under the ordinance.
Agreeing, the trial court granted the motion. Claymont appealed.
Judge Michael E. Gardner reversed, joined by Judges Thomas C. Clark, II and Elizabeth B. Hogan.
Claymont’s constitutional challenges to the city’s ordinances are ripe for adjudication even though it has not yet applied for approval of its Strecker Forest development plan, the court held.
“It is well-settled that a plaintiff may challenge the constitutionality of a law before it has been enforced against the plaintiff,” the court wrote. “A case that presents predominantly legal questions with little need for the development of additional facts is particularly amenable to a pre-enforcement determination, as are challenges to laws that have ‘interrupt[ed] or prevent[ed]’ the plaintiff’s ‘previous lawful conduct.’”
The court’s jurisprudence “is replete” with examples of ripe pre-enforcement constitutional challenges to statutes and ordinances, Gardner noted, from a convicted felon challenging a statute criminalizing his possession of firearms to a challenge by business owners and managers of a city ordinance that had yet to be enforced against them.
As for Claymont’s challenge, the Forest Strecker ordinance “is clearly directed at how Claymont can use Strecker Forest, and its enactment interrupted Claymont’s previously approved plan to develop that property,” the court explained. “On their face, the challenged ordinances ban ‘development of any property, or part thereof, located within the SCOD’ without approval under the SCOD ordinance. Thus, in order for Claymont to continue with its development plans in Strecker Forest, it must undergo the additional approval process in the SCOD ordinance. Claymont’s petition specifically alleged that the ordinances are already having an adverse effect by making development infeasible, interfering with its ‘investment-backed expectations,’ and destroying any economically beneficial use of its property.”
In addition, the allegations in Claymont’s petition presented predominantly legal claims, the court said: whether the approval process in the SCOD ordinance is unconstitutional on its face and as applied to Strecker Forest, and whether the Strecker Forest ordinance constituted a taking without just compensation.
Although the city argued that the impact of the challenged ordinances on Claymont remained speculative until the company submitted an application to develop Strecker Forest in accordance with the SCOD ordinance, the court said the city misconstrued the nature of the claims in the petition.
“Claymont did not assert that it would be unconstitutional to deny an application for the development of Strecker Forest; it claimed that subjecting its property to that approval process in the first place was unconstitutional and constituted a taking without just compensation,” the court wrote. “In other words, Claymont did not allege that it will be unable to develop Strecker Forest in the future; it alleged that it is currently being adversely impacted by the ordinances that subject development of that property to an additional approval process. These claims are not dependent in any way on what an application to develop Strecker Forest would contain or whether such an application would be approved or denied.”
The company is not required to engage in the approval process under the SCOD ordinance and await a negative result before challenging its constitutionality in court, Gardner said.
“In sum, the petition contained the requisite factual allegations — not merely conclusions as the City argues — demonstrating that the factual background necessary to adjudicate Claymont’s claims is fully developed and that the ordinances affect Claymont in a manner that gives rise to an immediate, concrete dispute,” the court concluded, reversing dismissal of the petition.
Caroline L. Hermeling of Husch Blackwell in St. Louis, who represented Claymont, declined to comment given the ongoing litigation.
Saint Charles attorney Jared D. Howell of Hamilton Weber, who represented the City of Wildwood, did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
The case is Claymont Development, LLC v. City of Wildwood, No. ED112720.