Henry v. Cherokee County

JOHNSON, Presiding Judge.

Between 1963 and 1966, Clifford Henry bought 43 acres of land in Cherokee County, put the property in his wife’s name, and began operating an automobile salvage yard on the property. In 1969, Cherokee County zoned the Henry property as industrial, a classification under which the automobile salvage yard was an appropriate use. In 1992, Cherokee County enacted a new zoning ordinance that reclassified the property as light industrial, a classification which does not permit automobile salvage yards and thus rendered Henry’s salvage business a legal nonconforming use.

In…