“Adjacent” Requires Touching Under S.C. Code § 5-3-100, and Standing Exists When an Annexation Ordinance Invades Another City’s Limits or a Third Party’s Land

Introduction

In National Trust for Historic Preservation v. City of North Charleston (S.C. Sup. Ct. Jan. 21, 2026), the South Carolina Supreme Court reviewed a dispute over the City of North Charleston’s attempted annexation of a one-acre parcel near Highway 61 and the Ashley River. The petitioners—National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States (“National Trust”) and the City of Charleston (“Charleston”)—challenged North Charleston’s annexation ordinance (Ordinance No. 2017-080) on the ground that the parcel to be annexed was not “adjacent” to North Charleston’s existing city limits as required by S.C. Code Ann. § 5-3-100 (2004).

The procedural posture drove the decision’s structure: the court of appeals affirmed dismissal for lack of standing and did not reach the merits. On certiorari, the Supreme Court (1) held both petitioners had standing, (2) certified and decided the merits under Rule 204(b), SCACR, and (3) affirmed the circuit court’s alternative ruling that the annexation was invalid because the parcel was not “adjacent” to North Charleston.

Summary of the Opinion

Standing: Charleston had standing because North Charleston’s annexation path necessarily ran “into and through” Charleston’s city limits. National Trust had standing because Ordinance 2017-080 purported to annex 62 square feet of National Trust’s land without its permission, despite § 5-3-100 requiring the territory to “belong[] entirely” to the annexing municipality.
Ordinance text controls: North Charleston’s claim that including National Trust’s land was an unintended “mistake” did not defeat standing; annexation scope is determined by the ordinance language, not subjective intent, and any error must be corrected by an amended or new ordinance.
Merits—meaning of “adjacent” in § 5-3-100: In the annexation context, “adjacent” requires physical contiguity (touching). Because National Trust’s 100-foot-wide strip separated the annexation parcel from North Charleston’s city limits, the parcel was not “adjacent,” making the annexation invalid.
Disposition: “REVERSED IN PART; AFFIRMED IN PART”—reversing the court of appeals on standing; affirming the circuit court’s invalidation of the annexation.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

Nat'l Tr. for Historic Pres. in U.S. v. City of North Charleston (Ct. App. 2023): The Supreme Court relied on the court of appeals’ detailed factual recitation but rejected its standing conclusion and proceeded to the merits the court of appeals had not reached. This use underscores a common appellate pattern: factual reliance without deference on legal conclusions (standing and statutory meaning).
Bryant v. City of Charleston (1988): Cited for the proposition that “contiguity is not destroyed by water or marshland” separating parcels of highland. Although Bryant concerned natural separations, it framed the conceptual baseline that annexation doctrine is fundamentally about contiguity—and that not every separation defeats it. The Court’s invocation of Bryant sharpened the contrast: here, the separation was not water/marsh within annexation boundaries but a distinct, privately owned strip lying within another municipality.
S.C. Dep't of Soc. Servs. v. Boulware (2018) and Glaze v. Grooms (1996): These cases supplied the governing standing standards: standing is a “right to make a legal claim” and requires a “personal stake” in the controversy. The Court applied these formulations to municipal boundary integrity (Charleston) and property ownership affected by annexation language (National Trust).
S.C. Pub. Int. Found. v. Wilson (2022) and Rish v. Rish (2024): The opinion flagged the court of appeals’ statement that a motion to dismiss for lack of standing challenges subject matter jurisdiction—quoting Wilson—and corrected it by relying on Rish v. Rish, which clarified that prior decisions had used “subject matter jurisdiction” imprecisely. This is a notable procedural clarification embedded in an annexation case: standing is treated as a justiciability requirement, but not necessarily a defect in subject matter jurisdiction.

Legal Reasoning

Charleston’s standing based on boundary intrusion: The Court found Charleston had a “personal stake” because North Charleston’s annexation could be accomplished only by running its city limits through Charleston’s limits. That municipal territorial intrusion was deemed a sufficient injury to confer standing.
National Trust’s standing based on annexation of its land under § 5-3-100: Section 5-3-100 permits annexation only when the territory “belongs entirely” to the annexing municipality. Because Ordinance 2017-080 included 62 square feet of the National Trust strip, National Trust faced a direct property/territorial injury traceable to the ordinance itself. The Court treated that inclusion—regardless of its small size—as legally meaningful for standing.
Objective ordinance boundaries, not subjective intent: North Charleston argued it never intended to annex National Trust property and that the inclusion was a deed-description mistake. The Court rejected intent-based narrowing: annexation “must be based only on the language the municipality uses in its annexation ordinance.” If erroneous, the municipality must correct it “in an amended or new ordinance.” This reasoning creates a rule of administrability: courts evaluate annexation legality by enacted text, not after-the-fact explanations.
“Adjacent” in § 5-3-100 means contiguous in the annexation scheme: North Charleston urged a dictionary-based meaning of “adjacent” as “close to, but not necessarily touching.” The Court held that, within South Carolina annexation statutes “premised on the requirement of contiguity,” “adjacent” does not relax the touching requirement. Because the National Trust strip intervened between North Charleston’s limits and the annexation parcel, adjacency was lacking and the annexation failed.
Expedited merits review under Rule 204(b), SCACR: After reversing on standing, the Court certified the substantive annexation issues for its own review, dispensed with further briefing, and decided the statutory question on the existing record and briefs.

Impact

Annexation drafting discipline: Municipalities must ensure annexation ordinances contain accurate legal descriptions; a claimed “mistake” will not be treated as a limiting construction. This heightens the importance of surveying, title review, and ordinance proofreading before enactment.
Expanded clarity on who can sue: A municipality has standing when another municipality’s annexation ordinance would cut through its jurisdictional boundaries, and a landowner has standing when an annexation ordinance purports to annex even a small portion of its property contrary to statutory prerequisites.
Substantive constraint on § 5-3-100 annexations: The decision functionally aligns “adjacent” in § 5-3-100 with contiguity/touching, limiting “gap” or “strip-separation” annexations that attempt to reach non-touching parcels. The Court’s reliance on annexation statutes as a coherent scheme suggests future courts may read annexation terms in context, not in isolation.
Procedural precision: By referencing Rish v. Rish, the opinion reinforces that standing disputes should not be reflexively labeled subject matter jurisdiction defects—potentially affecting motion practice and appellate framing in future public-law challenges.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Standing: The requirement that a plaintiff be sufficiently affected by the challenged action to justify the court deciding the dispute. Here, Charleston was affected because another city’s annexation would run through its boundaries; National Trust was affected because the ordinance included its land.
Annexation: A municipality’s legal process to bring additional territory within its city limits, governed by statute and implemented through ordinances.
“Adjacent” vs. “Contiguous”: In ordinary speech, “adjacent” can mean nearby. In this decision’s annexation context, “adjacent” under § 5-3-100 requires the proposed annexation territory to touch existing city limits—consistent with contiguity requirements elsewhere in annexation law (see § 5-3-150(1), (3)).
Ordinance controls over intent: Courts measure what a city annexed by what its ordinance says, not what officials later claim they meant. If the ordinance description is wrong, the fix is legislative: amend or re-enact the ordinance.
Certiorari and Rule 204(b), SCACR: Certiorari is discretionary Supreme Court review of a lower appellate decision. Rule 204(b) allowed the Supreme Court to “certify” and decide issues the court of appeals did not reach, enabling a final merits resolution without another full appellate cycle.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court’s decision establishes two practical rules for South Carolina annexation litigation. First, standing exists for (a) a municipality whose boundaries are invaded by another city’s annexation path and (b) a landowner whose property is included in an annexation ordinance contrary to § 5-3-100’s ownership requirement—regardless of the annexing city’s claimed intent. Second, “adjacent” in S.C. Code § 5-3-100 requires physical contiguity in the annexation context; a parcel separated by an intervening strip of land is not annexable under that provision. The opinion therefore strengthens textual rigor in annexation ordinances and constrains attempts to annex non-touching parcels by relying on proximity alone.