OPINION
delivered the opinion of the court,
The plaintiff applied for nine demolition permits, which the city initially issued. Two days later, however, the city revoked the permits based upon the “pending ordinance doctrine.” At the time the plaintiff applied for the demolition permits, an application proposing a zoning change had been filed with the city’s planning commission, but no action regarding the application had taken place other than the scheduling of a hearing before the city’s historic zoning commission to discuss the proposal and the publishing of a notice to residents about such meeting. The city’s historic zoning commission had not yet considered the zoning change application; consequently, the matter had not been referred to the city council for its consideration. We hold that the pending ordinance doctrine is inapplicable because the ordinance at issue was not sufficiently pending at the time the plaintiff applied for the demolition permits. The city’s revocation of the permits was therefore improper. Because the city unlawfully revoked the demolition permits, the plaintiff is entitled to reissuance of the permits notwithstanding the subsequent enactment of a zoning ordinance that could prohibit demolition. The plaintiff must be given a reasonable opportunity to demolish the structures when the city reissues the permits. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals as modified and remand this case to the trial court for the entry and enforcement of a decree ordering the city to reissue the revoked demolition permits to the plaintiff.
I. Factual and Procedural Background
The plaintiff in this case, Harding Academy (“Harding”), is a private elementary and middle school that has its campus in the Belle Meade Links Triangle area of Nashville, Tennessee. The defendant is the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County (“Metro”). In 1991, Harding began acquiring residential lots near its campus and had acquired eleven residential lots by January 2003. In February 2003, Harding asked Metro’s Board of Zoning Appeals to grant recreation center status to its properties, which would allow Harding to maintain athletic fields on its properties. An appeal was filed by a neighborhood group challenging the inter *362 pretation of the Director of Metro’s Department of Codes Administration (“Codes Director”) that use of the properties qualified as a “recreation center.” In March 2003, the district’s representative, Metro Councilwoman Lynn Williams, urged Harding to withdraw its application for recreation center status in an attempt to reach an amicable resolution of the dispute with the neighborhood group. Harding withdrew its application in March 2003, but no resolution was reached. On April 10, 2003, Councilwoman Williams filed with Metro’s Planning Commission an application on behalf of the neighborhood to have the Belle Meade Links Triangle area declared a neighborhood conservation overlay district. On April 23, 2003, notice was sent advising property owners of a hearing scheduled for May 14, 2003, before the Historic Zoning Commission regarding the proposed historic conservation overlay. This notice is not part of the record.
On May 1, 2003, Harding applied to the Metro Department of Codes Administration for permits authorizing the demolition of nine structures on the residential lots Harding had purchased. On May 2, 2003, the Department of Codes Administration referred five of the nine permit requests to the Historic Zoning Commission for review, which requests were not acted upon by the Historic Zoning Commission. On May 6, 2003, the Codes Director issued Harding the nine demolition permits it had requested. Two days later, on May 8, 2003, the Codes Director notified Harding that he was revoking the demolition permits that were issued to Harding, explaining that revocation was pursuant to advice from Metro’s Department of Law and was consistent with the “pending legislation doctrine.” Harding timely appealed Metro’s revocation of the demolition permits.
On May 14, 2003, the Historic Zoning Commission approved the proposed zoning change, and on May 20, 2003, the neighborhood conservation overlay ordinance for the Belle Meade Links Triangle passed its first reading before the Metro Council. After the historic conservation overlay application was filed and prior to the first reading of the ordinance, building permits for new construction in the same neighborhood came before the Historic Zoning Commission staff. These building permits were issued by Metro, and unlike the permits issued to Harding, they were not subsequently revoked.
On June 10, 2003, the Metro Board of Fire and Building Code Appeals heard Harding’s appeal. The Codes Director testified that Chapter 16.04.120 of the Metro Code authorizes the Codes Director to revoke permits issued in error and that Metro’s Department of Law informed him that issuance of the nine demolition permits to Harding was in error because there was legislation currently pending seeking to place an historic conservation overlay on the subject properties. The Metro Board of Fire and Building Code Appeals voted to uphold the revocation of the nine demolition permits issued to Harding. Harding filed a writ of certiorari seeking a ruling that Metro’s revocation of the demolition permits “was in excess of its jurisdiction, illegal or arbitrary and capricious.”
Meanwhile, on July 15, 2003, the historic conservation overlay ordinance passed its third and final reading before the Metro Council. The adopted ordinance states that it will “take effect immediately after its passage” and also states, “Effective Date: July 19, 2003.” The facts recited above are undisputed by the parties. In enacting the historic conservation overlay ordinance, the parties agree that Metro complied with the applicable statutes.
On July 29, 2004, the trial court issued a “Memorandum and Order” reversing Met *363 ro’s decision. The trial court ordered the Codes Director to reissue the demolition permits to Harding, finding that the revocation of the permits based upon the “pending legislation doctrine” was arbitrary and capricious. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling under different reasoning. The intermediate appellate court concluded that the trial court erred in holding that Metro could not rely upon the “pending legislation doctrine” to revoke the demolition permits. The Court of Appeals, however, agreed with the trial court that Metro’s revocation of the permits was exercised in an arbitrary and capricious manner. The Court of Appeals’ opinion affirms the trial court’s order that Metro’s Department of Codes Administration reissue the demolition permits to Harding. However, a footnote in the Court of Appeals’ opinion stating that “our holding should not be construed to mean that Harding Academy is now permitted to carry out its planned demolition of the structures on the property at issue” has caused confusion as to whether Harding may demolish the structures when the permits are reissued. We granted permission to appeal.
II. Analysis
At issue in this case is the propriety of Metro’s decision to revoke the nine demolition permits that were issued to Harding. Judicial review of a decision by a local board of zoning appeals, an administrative body, is obtained by filing a petition for a common law writ of cer-tiorari.
See
Tenn.Code Ann. § 27-8-101 (2000);
see also McCallen v. City of Memphis,
Our review is limited to the record produced by the zoning board unless the reviewing court has permitted the introduction of additional evidence on the issue of whether the board exceeded its jurisdiction or acted illegally, capriciously, or arbitrarily.
Moore v. Metro. Bd. of Zoning Appeals,
*364 Metro argues that the record before the Board of Zoning Appeals contains sufficient evidence to support its decision to revoke the nine demolition permits that had been issued to Harding. We disagree.
Pending Ordinance Doctrine
The “pending legislation doctrine,” also known as the “pending ordinance doctrine,” provides that a building permit need not be issued if pending at the time of application is an amendment to a zoning ordinance that would prohibit the use of land for which the permit is sought.
See
101A C.J.S.
Zoning & Land Planning
§ 262 (2005). The pending ordinance doctrine permits a municipality to amend its zoning ordinances “without the threat of landowners racing to beat the clock by filing an application and thus obtaining vested rights under existing regulations.”
Id.
Accordingly, the pending ordinance doctrine allows a municipality to refuse to issue a permit even if the permit application is made a considerable time before the enactment of the pending ordinance.
Id.
The ordinance, however, must be legally pending on the date of the permit application.
Id.
In addition, the municipality may not unreasonably or arbitrarily refuse or delay issuance of the permit.
Id.
Finally, although most cases that discuss the pending ordinance doctrine involve a municipality’s refusal to issue a permit in the face of a pending ordinance, the pending ordinance doctrine also allows a municipality to revoke a permit it erroneously issued.
See, e.g., Sharrow v. City of Dania,
We applied the pending ordinance doctrine to a pending zoning ordinance in
State ex rel. SCA Chemical Waste Services, Inc. v. Konigsberg,
In
Cherokee Country Club, Inc. v. City of Knoxville,
While both Konigsberg and Cherokee Country Club refer to the proper application of the pending ordinance doctrine in the context of a comprehensive zoning ordinance, we do not limit the application of the pending ordinance doctrine to such cases. We see no good reason to make a distinction between a comprehensive zoning ordinance and an historic zoning ordinance. To the contrary, the same considerations are applicable. Whether or not the historic zoning ordinance at issue falls within the definition of a comprehensive zoning ordinance, the municipality’s interest in being able to work out the details of a zoning change free from potential violations of the pending ordinance is identical. Moreover, we are aware of no cases from other jurisdictions that make such a distinction. The issue in the present case, therefore, is not whether the pending ordinance doctrine is applicable to a case involving an historic zoning ordinance but whether the historic zoning ordinance was actually pending at the time Harding applied for the demolition permits.
Courts disagree about the point in time at which a zoning ordinance becomes “pending” for purposes of the pending ordinance doctrine. Some jurisdictions hold that for a zoning ordinance to be pending, the proposed change need not be introduced to the governing body for consideration provided the appropriate department of the city is actively pursuing it.
Villa at Greeley, Inc. v. Hopper,
In
Konigsberg,
we cited to
Sherman v. Reavis,
At the time Harding applied for the demolition permits on May 1, 2003, an application for a zoning change had been filed with Metro’s Planning Commission. This application simply proposed that the Belle Meade Links Triangle area be declared an historic overlay district. No action regarding the zoning change application had taken place prior to Harding’s demolition requests other than the scheduling of a hearing before the Historic Zoning Commission to discuss the proposal and the publishing of a notice to residents about such meeting. The Historic Zoning Commission had not yet considered the zoning change application; consequently, the matter had not been referred to the City Council for its consideration.
We emphasized in
Cherokee Country Club
that the emergency ordinance in that case improperly “prohibited a use of property pending an
application to consider
a historic overlay designation.”
In the present case, the Historic Zoning Commission did not recommend the historic conservation overlay designation to the Metro Council until
after
Harding applied for and was issued the demolition permits. Consequently, the ordinance in this case was not “pending.” The zone change application filed with the Metro Planning Commission and the subsequent notice of a public hearing simply occurred too early in the historic zoning process to justify use of the pending ordinance doctrine to revoke Harding’s permits.
See Scott,
Because we conclude that the ordinance was not sufficiently “pending” to permit the application of the pending ordinance doctrine, we do not reach the issue of whether Metro’s revocation of Harding’s demolition permits was arbitrary and capricious with regard to other property owners who had applied for building permits during the same period. We must, however, address the footnote in the Court of Appeals’ opinion suggesting Harding may not be permitted to carry out its planned demolition of the structures on the properties at issue even if Metro reissues the permits. The Court of Appeals reasoned that the reissuance of the permits could be governed by the newly enacted ordinance. We disagree.
Vested Rights
The general rule is that the mere issuance of a permit does not result in any right to protection from a subsequent zoning change.
See Schneider v. Lazarov,
If, however, a municipality has acted arbitrarily, wrongly, or in bad faith with regard to a permit applicant, courts have held that a subsequent zoning ordinance may not be applied retroactively.
See
Roland F. Chase, Annotation,
Retroactive Effect of Zoning Regulation, in Absence of Saving Clause, on Pending Application for Building Permit,
III. Conclusion
We hold that the pending ordinance doctrine is inapplicable in this case because the ordinance at issue was not sufficiently pending at the time Harding applied for the demolition permits and that Metro’s revocation of the permits was therefore unlawful. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand this case to the trial court for the entry and enforcement of a decree ordering Metro to reissue to Harding the nine revoked demolition permits. Costs of this appeal are taxed to the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, for which execution may issue if necessary.
