Willoughby Development Corp. v. Ravalli County

MEMORANDUM *

Montana land developers appeal from the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Ravalli County. The facts are known to the parties and need not be repeated here, except as necessary to explain our decision.

*583 Ravalli County did not violate the developers’ procedural rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by retroactively applying a new zoning regulation to their pending subdivision applications. The developers do not have a property interest in a particular lot size or in approval of their subdivision applications. As in Shanks v. Dressel, 540 F.3d 1082 (9th Cir.2008), the developers do not direct us “to any statutory language that imposes particularized standards ... that significantly constrain” Ravalli County’s discretion in deciding which applications to approve or to deny. Id. at 1091 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).

Nor do the developers have a property interest in the application of the regulations in effect at the time they filed their subdivision applications. See Mont.Code Ann. § 76-3-604(8)(a). Section 76-3-604(8)(a) constitutes a procedural guarantee to the application of certain regulations; it does…