Riverwood Farm Property Owners Association and other Bartow County property owners sued Southern States-Bartow County, the County, and related parties over a proposed solid-waste landfill. The plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that the landfill violated county zoning ordinances; they also asserted anticipatory-nuisance and other claims. The superior court granted the plaintiffs partial summary judgment, ruling that Southern States’ vested right to develop a landfill had lapsed under the 1993 zoning ordinance because construction had not begun within one year, and alternatively that a 2004 permit application was governed by then-current zoning. The Court of Appeals of Georgia vacated and remanded. The superior court had jurisdiction even while the plaintiffs challenged the later state environmental permit administratively because that proceeding could not resolve the separate county-zoning question. The 1993 ordinance applied because the vested right arose when Southern States filed its 1989 application, and the earlier ordinance was invalid. The court agreed that obtaining paperwork did not commence the actual nonconforming landfill use, so the right lapsed under the ordinance’s plain language. But the trial court had not expressly ruled on Southern States’ constitutional claim that applying the ordinance retroactively impaired vested rights, requiring remand for an express ruling. The record also contained a detailed affidavit creating a genuine factual dispute over whether the 2004 filing was a genuinely new permit application or merely a modification of the original application. Those unresolved issues required vacatur rather than final judgment.