Plains Grains Limited Partnership v. Board of County Commissioners of Cascade County
Supreme Court of Montana
238 P.3d 332 (2010)
Southern Montana Electric and the Urquharts sought to rezone 668 agricultural acres, surrounded entirely by agricultural land, to heavy industrial in order to build a natural-gas power plant and access favorable tax-increment financing, even though the plant could have been built via a discretionary special-use permit without any rezoning at all. The county's own planning department acknowledged the plant would be incongruous with the area's existing agricultural use, though it could technically be built under current zoning via special permit; the county board approved the rezoning anyway, and Plains Grains (plaintiff) sued, arguing the change was impermissible spot zoning under the state's established three-part test, but the district court disagreed, and Plains Grains appealed.
Whether impermissible spot zoning exists where the requested use differs from the prevailing use in the surrounding area, even though that use might theoretically be permissible under existing zoning law through a special-use permit.