The site that was selected in 2023 in Lincoln County for a prison construction project. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)
The South Dakota Supreme Court handed a legal loss Thursday to opponents of a Lincoln County prison site lawmakers have already abandoned.
In a unanimous ruling, the justices decided that Lincoln County residents don’t have the right to force the state to adhere to local zoning ordinances.
Representatives from the nonprofit organization Neighbors Opposed to Prison Expansion, or NOPE, sought to force the issue with a lawsuit filed in 2023, shortly after the state announced its decision to place a 1,500-bed men’s prison on farm ground about 14 miles south of Sioux Falls.
Prison opponents tell SD Supreme Court the state should have county permission to build
The neighbors wanted the state to seek a conditional use permit for the prison. The state argued that counties don’t have the authority to regulate what the state does with its own land.
The neighbors lost at the circuit court level, but appealed to the state’s high court. The justices heard arguments in March.
The justices didn’t decide if the state has immunity from local zoning restrictions. Instead, they ruled that neighbors lack the legal standing to enforce those ordinances through a lawsuit, leaving the underlying question of the state’s authority to sidestep county rules untouched.
The practical weight of Thursday’s decision in the state’s ongoing prison debate is essentially null. The state’s Project Prison Reset task force voted earlier this year to scratch the original Lincoln County site from its list of options, and voted this week to recommend building on one of two vacant industrial sites on the northeastern edge of Sioux Falls.
