Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Ranae Gillie celebrates Friday in front of her Blacksburg restaurant, Gillie's, after hearing about a Virginia Supreme Court ruling that gives the town council the right to regulate or disapprove plans for a big-box retail store widely thought to be a Wal-Mart.

The former Blacksburg Rugby Club field is near the First & Main retail center. Friday's ruling does not kill plans for a big-box store, and developers can still apply for a special-use permit to build one.

A home on Airport Road near Margaret Beeks Elementary School displays a sign Friday that opposes the proposed superstore.

BLACKSBURG -- In a landmark decision on Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court handed the town council -- and residents who sided with it -- a major victory in their two-year fight to regulate a big-box store widely thought to be a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

The ruling, posted Friday on the court's Web site, affirmed the council's right to require Fairmount Properties of Ohio and partners to apply for a special-use permit to build a 186,000-square-foot store off South Main Street.

The megastore is planned as part of that company's 40-acre First & Main retail center. Phase one of the project, including restaurants and major retailers such as Coldwater Creek and Talbots, opened last year.

Friday's ruling is also expected to have statewide repercussions as it clarifies at what point in pursuing a project a developer becomes immune to changes in a locality's zoning code. In Virginia law, this immunity is called "vested rights."

Blacksburg Mayor Ron Rordam hailed the court's decision as a victory for all local governments and said it reaffirms the town's power to plan for its future.

Rordam said the task of town officials now is to work with Fairmount and its partners to ensure the success of First & Main while following the town's comprehensive development plan and zoning ordinances.

"It's a great day that thousands of Blacksburg residents who ... supported our case all the way to the Supreme Court can feel some victory here," Councilman Don Langrehr said.

Langrehr proposed the original ordinance that was at the heart of Friday's ruling.

"I'm grateful that the Supreme Court recognized that Blacksburg was applying appropriate land-use regulations for its citizens and neighborhoods," Langrehr said.

The decision is also a victory for 21 landowners opposed to the big-box store, who filed a companion suit with help and funding from Blacksburg United for Responsible Growth, a grass-roots group that opposes having a Wal-Mart or similar supercenter at the town's South Main commercial area.

"I'm ecstatic. In fact, I'm in shock. We've been working on this for so long," said superstore opponent Ranae Gillie, co-owner of Gillie's restaurant and Bollo's Cafe & Bakery in downtown Blacksburg.

"Sometimes I feel as if people can just come in and roll over us ... and this time our organization and our town have stopped them," said Gillie, who is affiliated with BURG.

The landowners have spent about $70,000 on the case. The council has spent about $170,000.

Phone messages seeking comment from Fairmount representatives were not immediately returned. Friday's ruling does not necessarily kill plans for a big-box store, however. In fact, Fairmount and its local partners, Diversified Investors LLC, may still apply for a special-use permit to build the store.

That permit process allows the council to place restrictions and conditions on the store -- or to disallow it entirely.

Fairmount had argued that the council's 2006 approval of a rezoning and proffers restricting the density of residential units, among other limitations, created a blanket vested right. That right, the company argued, allowed construction of any type of retail store allowed in the general commercial zoning district in 2006, so long as that store was not disallowed by the proffers.

Fairmount further argued that the blanket vested right rendered its project immune to Langrehr's Ordinance 1450, passed in 2007, which required special approval for retail buildings larger than 80,000 square feet.

The town's board of zoning appeals and the Montgomery County Circuit Court found in Fairmount's favor. The council then appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court.

In a unanimous decision on Friday, the court reversed the earlier rulings and found in favor of the council.

"We reject the developers' contention that terms of development proffers that apply to any use of the property, such as increased setbacks, restrictions on building height, or the required inclusion of ... roads and landscaping 'specify use' of the property in order to create a vested right," the justices wrote.

"I'm speechless. I did not expect such a decisive victory," Town Attorney Larry Spencer said.

The last time the state Supreme Court ruled on vested rights was the 2003 City of Suffolk v. Board of Zoning Appeals case. On a 4-3 decision, the court found that a developer who had proffered a master land-use plan restricting the density of development of some tracts of land had gained vested rights.

But three justices -- Lawrence Koontz, Barbara Keenan and Chief Justice Leroy Hassell -- dissented. In their minority opinion, they found that the proffered plan lacked sufficient specificity to confer vested rights. Since that time, two new justices Bernard Goodwyn and LeRoy Millette-- have joined the court.

While Friday's ruling did not overturn the 2003 case, the new decision, "does ... put a substantial amount of meat on the bones of what Suffolk was," expert Virginia land-use attorney John Foote of Prince William said.

"If you want a protected, vested right, you have to be specific about it," Foote said.

In other words, to secure the right to build a big-box store, a developer must ask for and get approval for a big-box store.