The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the Hancock County Board of Supervisors decision which denied Prestige Oysters’ application to use its property as a marina. The Court found the Board acted on a “whim” when it turned to a state law rather than the relevant zoning ordinance before it.
Prestige Oysters planned to use its coastal property to service vessels and also to unload oysters from its boats and truck them to Louisiana. Under local zoning, no variance is required for berthing, fueling, and loading and servicing boats in that area.
At the first of three hearings by the Board, the Planning and Zoning Inspector for Hancock County had no objections to the Prestige Oysters project. Yet in the third meeting, the Board discussed whether unloading seafood is processing. While Prestige Oysters’ application stated the property would not be used to process seafood or sell seafood, the Board turned to Mississippi Code § 49-15-28(2), which defines a seafood processor as any person “engaged in the canning, processing, freezing, drying, or shipping of oysters, fish, saltwater crabs, or saltwater shrimp.” That law applies to when someone needs a state license. Even though the law did not apply to zoning decisions, the Board interpreted it to mean that because Prestige Oysters shipped the oysters, they were processing them. The application was denied.
Prestige Oyster appealed to the Hancock County Circuit Court. That court found no evidence that the marina property was going to be used for seafood processing and reversed the Board’s decision. The Board went to the Mississippi Supreme Court, which agreed with the Circuit Court. After acknowledging that the Supreme Court typically is deferential to a local board’s interpretations, it found the Board’s reliance on a definition for state licensing was arbitrary and capricious. The Court found that what mattered was whether any “processing uses” prohibited by the zoning ordinance would occur on the site. Although the zoning ordinance did not define “processing”, the Supreme Court agreed with the lower court that the better definition of processing oysters is preparing them for human consumption and not merely shipping them.
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