Case Name: CITY OF SAN ANTONIO, Petitioner, v. PIGEONHOLE PARKING OF TEXAS, Inc., Respondent
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1958-02-26
Citations: 311 S.W.2d 218
Docket Number: No. A-6339
Parties: CITY OF SAN ANTONIO, Petitioner, v. PIGEONHOLE PARKING OF TEXAS, Inc., Respondent.
Judges: SMITH, J., joins in this dissent
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 311
Pages: 218–228

Head Matter:
CITY OF SAN ANTONIO, Petitioner, v. PIGEONHOLE PARKING OF TEXAS, Inc., Respondent.
No. A-6339.
Supreme Court of Texas.
Feb. 26, 1958.
Rehearing Denied April 9, 1958.
Carlos C. Cadena, City Atty., A. W. Worthy, Jr., Asst. City Atty., San Antonio, for petitioner.
Sawtelle, Hardy, Davis & Goode, Frank M. Rosson, San Antonio, for respondent.

Opinion:
CULVER, Justice.
The respondent sought a writ of mandamus against the petitioner, City of San Antonio, to compel the issuance of a permit for a curb cut and the construction of driveway for vehicular traffic across the sidewalk on Houston Street to its property located on the corner of Soledad and Houston in the City of San Antonio. The granting of the writ by the trial court was affirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals. 300 S.W.2d 328, 329.
Respondent had constructed a 10-story parking garage on its corner lot. The City had granted a permit for an 89 foot driveway across the sidewalk on Soledad Street. In January of 1956 the City denied a permit for a curb cut and driveway across the sidewalk on Houston Street. In the following month the City Council enacted an ordinance providing that: "No permit shall be issued for construction of any curb cut or driveway leading onto those portions of Commerce and Houston Streets which lie between Main Avenue and Alamo Street." This suit was filed subsequently to the passage of the ordinance. The parties have stipulated that the action be considered in all respects as though filed prior to the enactment of the ordinance quoted above. However, we consider this stipulation to have no material effect one way or the other.
The Court of Civil Appeals based its af-firmance solely upon the proposition that.
"Appellee's right of access as an abutter is a property right and appellant's ordinance flatly prohibiting the issuance of permits which would make such access possible is an unconstitutional taking of said property right."
Undoubtedly the general rule is that access to a public highway is an incident to ownership of land abutting thereon and the corollary follows that this right cannot be taken or destroyed for public purposes without adequate compensation being given therefor. Adams v. Grapotte, Tex.Civ.App., 69 S.W.2d 460; Powell v. Houston & T. C. R. Co., 104 Tex. 219, 135 S.W. 1153, 46 L.R.A..N.S., 1615. While this rule is universally followed where the power of eminent domain is exercised, it does not apply when a municipality invokes its police power for the protection of the health, safety and general welfare of its citizens.
Lombardo v. City of Dallas, 124 Tex. 1, 73 S.W.2d 475, 478, in upholding the constitutionality of zoning ordinances, approved the following rule of law:
"All property is held subject to the valid exercise of the police power; nor are regulations unconstitutional merely because they operate as a restraint upon private rights of person or property or will result in loss to individuals. The infliction of such loss is not a deprivation of property without due process of law; the exertion of the police power upon subjects lying within its scope, in a proper and lawful manner, is due process of law. Moreover, police regulations do not constitute a taking of property under the right of eminent domain; and compensation is not required to be made for such loss as is occasioned by the proper exercise of the police power. "
The problem we deal with here, whether the abutter has the absolute right to cross the sidewalk with his driveway, irrespective of any other facts and considerations, is one on which authorities do not agree, though our search has revealed no controlling Texas decision.
The lack of uniformity among the authorities seems to be no less apparent now than it was in 1906 when it was observed in Sauer v. City of New York, 206 U.S. 536, 27 S.Ct. 686, 690, 51 L.Ed. 1176, that:
" The right of an owner of land abutting on public highways has been a fruitful source of litigation in the courts of all of the states, and the decisions have been conflicting, and often in the same state irreconcilable in principle. The courts have modified or overruled their own decisions, and each state has in the end fixed and limited, by legislation or judicial decision, the rights of abutting owners in accordance with its own view of the law and public policy. "
The respondent concedes to the City the right of regulation under its police power but contends that this right stops short of complete prohibition. We will discuss the cases upon which respondent principally relies. Some of them, though not all, are to be distinguished from the facts and circumstances of our case, so that aside from a general statement of the law they would have little^ application. For example, in Continental Oil Co. v. City of Twin Falls, 49 Idaho 89, 286 P. 353, the court held that access to a public way across the sidewalk is a vested right of which the owner cannot be deprived without compensation, but went further and struck down the ordinance on the ground that it was discriminatory.
The land involved in State ex rel. Gebelin v. Department of Highways, 200 La. 409, 8 So.2d 71, lay outside the city limits. The plaintiff owned two tracts on opposite sides of the highway fronting 1,800 and 1,-000 feet respectively. He proposed to subdivide into 29 lots on the north and 16 on the south. While the plaintiff contended for an access to the highway from each lot he asked only for six entries on the north and four on the south. The points of entry were allowed as prayed for, the court pointing out that the six connections on the north would be approximately 300 feet apart and the four on the south 270 feet apart, saying that if the owner has free and convenient access to his property he has no cause of complaint. Implicit is the conclusion that the Court would not have held each subsequent lot purchaser entitled to direct access to the highway merely because his lot abutted on the highway. Goodfellow Tire Co. v. Commissioner of Parks & Boulevards, 163 Mich. 249, 128 N.W. 410, 30 L.R.A.,N.S., 1074, construed a legislative act creating the Board of Commissioners as not empowering the Board to deny the permit.
In Royal Transit Co. v. Village of West Milwaukee, 266 Wis. 271, 63 N.W.2d 62, it appears that the decision was based upon statutory grounds. The issue was resolved by a determination of whether or not the property abutted on the street within the meaning of the statute.
This is not to say that other of the authorities cited by respondent notably Anzalone v. Metropolitan District Commission, 257 Mass. 32, 153 N.E. 325, 47 A.L. R. 897; Howell v. Board of Commissioners, 169 Ga. 74, 149 S.E. 779; Brownlow v. O'Donoghue Bros., Inc., 51 App.D.C. 114, 276 F. 636, 22 A.L.R. 939, and Newman v.. Mayor of City of Newport, 73 R.I. 385, 57 A.2d 173 can be disposed of in that fashion. They generally support respondent in his contention that the municipality can regulate but not prohibit. In Howell v. Board of Commissioners, supra, [169 Ga. 74, 149 ,S.E. 781] the Court having under consideration the validity of a similar ordinance said:
"This easement of access is a property right, of which the landowner cannot be deprived, upon the ground that the safety of the public traveling upon the highway may be endangered by the exercise of this easement by the abutting landowner, without just and adequate compensation being first paid to the owner.
and held that the owner of the comer lot and the filling station thereon was entitled to access for motor vehicles over the sidewalks on both streets.
On the other hand there are authorities that reflect a contrary view and would uphold the ordinance as a valid exercise by the City of its police power. This view we adopt.
In Alexander Co. v. City of Owatonna, 1946, 222 Minn. 312, 24 N.W.2d 244, 256, the refusal by the City Council to grant application for driveway over the sidewalk to serve a private business was held to be a proper exercise of the police power and not a denial of due process where the regulation had a substantial relation to public safety. The decision is based in part upon the rule that an abutting owner may not appropriate a part of the street for the purpose of his own private business. The Court reasons that this is just what the plaintiff was there attempting to do in seeking to construct a driveway for vehicular traffic over the public sidewalk. The Court observes: " there is very little force in the argument that a regulation which in the interest of the public safety prohibits the construction and maintenance over a public sidewalk of a vehicular driveway for the use of a private business is an unreasonable and unlawful exercise of the police power and a denial of due process." In that case the majority opinion and the dissent ably present the conflicting views and discuss many of the authorities cited by the parties here.
In Breinig v. County of Allegheny, 332 Pa. 494, 2 A.2d 842, 847, while recognizing expressly the general rule contended for by respondent that the abutting owner has the right of access to his property, and that the right cannot be taken from him without compensation, nevertheless, the Court holds that, "in highly congested areas the right of vehicular access to property abutting the highway may be reduced to a minimum and be so limited as to exclude the right to maintain driveways immediately fronting the property, where it is possible to locate them elsewhere,
The same court earlier in Farmers-Kissinger Market House Co., Inc. v. Reading, 310 Pa. 493, 165 A. 398, 401, concluded that an ordinance forbidding the use of a congested sidewalk for vehicular traffic was a proper and reasonable exercise of the City's police power. The facts and holdings in this case are quite pertinent, so much so that we quote:
"That plaintiff has the right of egress from its property to Penn street and the right of ingress from Penn street to its property is not disputed. That the public has the right to the reasonably unhindered use of Penn street and the sidewalks in front of plaintiff's property is equally indubitable. But plaintiff proposes to exercise its right of ingress and egress to and from Penn street in such a manner and to such an extent that hundreds of the automobiles of its patrons will pass daily from its market and garage directly to Penn street and from Penn street directly to its market and garage. This will involve substantial interference with the extensive westbound and east-bound motor and street car traffic on Penn street in the block in front of plaintiff's property, and substantial interference 'with the constant use of the sidewalks in front of plaintiff's property, by thousands of pedestrians.
"Plaintiff already has vehicular ingress to and egress from its garage and market on Cherry street. If the city of Reading were attempting to deny plaintiff's property all vehicular ingress and egress, the reasonableness of its act might justly be questioned, but plaintiff is now asking for additional vehicular ingress and egress, and it demands it to and from one of the most traveled blocks and over one of the most frequently used sidewalks of a city of 115,000 people. Plaintiff is in effect attempting to create a new thoroughfare to and from a busy block on a busy street. That new thoroughfare would not result in the relief of traffic in that block, but in its congestion and ' entanglement. All this plaintiff asks for solely in its own interests."
To the same effect is Wood v. City of Richmond, 148 Va. 400, 138 S.E. 560. The facts are quite similar to those in our case. The owner contended that as an abutter he had the right of access to his property from both streets on which his property abutted. The Court, while recognizing the general right of the abutting landowner to access, holds that the exercise of that right is subordinate to the right of the municipality to control the use of the streets so as to promote the safety, comfort, health and general welfare of the public and denied to the landowner the right to- cut a driveway, where he had access from another street.
In Standard Oil Co. v. Kearney, 106 Neb. 558, 184 N.W. 109, 18 A.L.R. 95, although the Court held invalid an ordinance "providing that it shall be unlawful for any person or persons, firm or corporation, to erect or construct upon any lot, piece of lot, or parcel of land, a filling station wherein motor-propelled vehicles are run in for the purpose of receiving gasolines and oils, between Eighteenth and Thirty-First Streets on Central Avenue, in the City of Kearney, Nebraska," it did so on the ground that it was unreasonable, arbitrary and discriminatory. The Court observed that it could hardly have been intended as a fire protection measure for several reasons and that if intended to prevent interference with the use of the sidewalk by pedestrians it was unreasonable as the Court was convinced that in a city of less than 8,000 the slight inconvenience to pedestrians crossing the sidewalk was not of sufficient magnitude to justify the passage of the ordinance. So it follows that if the ordinance had been found to be reasonable and appropriate for the prevention of fire or safety of the public it would have been upheld.
Our Commission of Appeals in City of Fort Worth v. Gulf Ref. Co., Tex.Com. App., 55 S.W.2d 792, upheld the power of the City to levy a tax upon a gasoline station using the sidewalk for vehicular access to its facility, against the contention that the ordinance was unconstitutional and void on the ground that the property owner had the inherent right of ingress and egress to his property.
The ordinance before us has merely the effect of a zoning regulation. If a municipality can lawfully invoke its police power to the extent of regulating the kind and character of business that may be conducted within a certain district when required by reasons of public health, safety, comfort and convenience, surely it would not be an unconstitutional exercise of that power in zoning a section of two streets in the center of the business district against vehicular traffic over the sidewalks.
We conclude that the ordinance enacted by the City Council in the exercise of its police power is not invalid as a matter of law though it operates to place a restriction upon the private owner in the use of its property.
The respondent urges three remaining counter points in seeking to uphold the trial court's .decision, but we are of the opinion that they are without merit and can be dealt with briefly.
Respondent says that the ordinance is not retroactive and was not intended by the City Council to have a retroactive effect, but if retroactive it is invalid as a taking of respondent's property without due process of law. We say the ordinance is not retroactive against respondent merely because its application for the permit had been denied prior to the passage of the ordinance nor for the reason that it had failed to file suit before the passage of the ordinance.
McEachern v. Town of Highland Park, 124 Tex. 36, 73 S.W.2d 487, puts this question to rest in holding:
" There is no merit in plaintiff in error's insistence that because he applied for a permit and filed a suit upon its refusal before the zoning ordinance was enacted, the ordinance cannot be invoked against him. ⅜ * ⅜ »
Finally respondent says that the ordinance is arbitrary and unreasonable because passed without notice or hearing and because the' same does not reflect that it was based on necessity or 'intended to serve the public safety or welfare. No showing is made here that the City Council failed to follow any charter requirements in enacting the ordinance nor is there cited any rule of law requiring' the ordinance to reflect the reasons for its adoption.
The'burden of showing that the ordi-nánce is unnecessary, unreasonable and arbitrary is upon the respondent and unless that showing is clearly made, the action of the City Council is conclusive and cannot be revised by the courts. Town of Ascarate v. Villalobos, 148 Tex. 254, 223 S.W. 2d 945. No evidence was-introduced at the hearing below. The case was tried on a stipulation which merely recited the facts as shown in this opinion, together with a statement of negotiations had between respondent's counsel and the City authorities, by reason of which, to some extent, respondent claims to have been misled. If this be true it is only necessary to add that estoppel is not available against a municipality in matters affecting or involving its governmental or public functions. City of San Angelo v. Deutsch, 126 Tex. 532, 91 S.W.2d 308; Rolison v. Puckett, 145 Tex. 366, 198 S.W.2d 74.
Now it is evident that the City granted respondent a permit to erect its parking facility and respondent proceeded with the construction, probably with the-expectation of having vehicular access' from both streets. But he has made no showing nor offered any testimony that the refusal of a permit for a driveway om Houston Street would be oppressive or arbitrary or interfere unreasonably with the operation of his garage or that it could not be conducted profitably and economically without the additional driveway. He has not attempted to show that the pedestrian, travel along Houston Street is not so heavy and congested as to make the driveway hazardous to the public and a threat to the safety of pedestrians at that point. It may be that such facts can be shown as to convince the Court that the enforcement of the ordinance as - to respondent would be unreasonable .and unjust. The test of reasonableness to.be applied is not solely one of whether the additional driveway on Houston Street is essential to the profitable operation of respondent's business, but whether the use of the sidewalk would expose the pedestrian public to such hazard and danger as to be out of proportion to the detriment caused to respondent by a denial of that use. Tilton v. Sharpe, 85 N.H. 138,. 155 A. 44.
The respondent has proceeded under a mistake of law in presenting his casé and in the interest of fairness and justice,, instead of a rendition that would normally be in order, we will reverse and remand to afford the respondent an opportunity to produce such testimony, if any there is. Rule 505, Texas Rules of Civil Procedure; London Terrace, Inc., v. McAlister, 142 Tex. 608, 180 S.W.2d 619.
Reversed and remanded.