Chapter 31 Settlements and Consent Orders
Municipalities have authority to settle actions brought against them provided the settlement represents a genuine compromise of matters in issue. These settlements may take the form of a consent order that will be binding on the municipality provided it acts lawfully and in good faith and does not surrender to or compromise with an entirely unfounded claim.1
Like any other form of litigation, land use lawsuits are frequently settled. Settlement negotiations are not always productive, but when they fail, the fact that settlement offers were made and the content of the offers are no more admissible in a zoning case than they would be in any other lawsuit.2
When settlement of a land use lawsuit is effected, it has been a common practice for the terms of the settlement to be embodied in a consent order. A consent order settling a land use lawsuit may be approved by a municipality or county only after all of the procedural due process requirements of notice and a public hearing as mandated by the municipal zoning enabling statute have been observed. In Martin v. City of Greenville,3 the court stated:
The settlement agreement entered into by the parties, although argued by the plaintiffs to be merely a modification of the enforcement provision of the existing Greenville Zoning Ordinance, would amend the ordinance by modifying the existing requirements of the R-1 zoning district in which the plaintiffs property...
