The Virginia Supreme Court ruled this morning that the city of Roanoke was correct in allowing then-planning director Brian Townsend leeway to grant exemptions from the city’s subdivision ordinance to a South Roanoke developer.

The ruling is a victory for the city in a case involving neighbors who wanted to block the upscale Wilton in South Roanoke subdivision off U.S. 220 South.

Sixteen residents of the Peakwood Drive neighborhood, which adjoins the planned subdivision, sued the city and one of the region’s pre-eminent developers, Len Boone, last year. They alleged city officials were so enamored with the potential tax revenue from Boone’s planned development of $500,000 homes that they broke their own planning regulations in an effort to fast-track the project.

In October, Roanoke Circuit Judge Charlie Dorsey ruled in favor of the city.

The state Supreme Court upheld Dorsey’s ruling regarding the subdivision ordinance. More importantly, it ruled that the neighbors technically had no standing to bring the action.

That’s important, said Virginia Beach lawyer and legal expert L. Steven Emmert, because it disallows neighbors from suing one another over a locality’s land-use laws — a possibility he termed a "time-bomb."

"If you can imagine, think of the last neighborhood dispute you heard about that turned ugly," Emmert said. "Imagine that dispute going thermonuclear because one neighbor measures the other’s garage from the property line and says it’s 9 feet when government requires 10 feet. If you allow private parties to enforce that, you’re opening up a tremendous can of worms."