Case Name: Joyce PAULK, Petitioner-Appellant, v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF the CITY OF TUPELO, Respondent-Appellee
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1967-02-20
Citations: 195 So. 2d 488
Docket Number: No. 44226
Parties: Joyce PAULK, Petitioner-Appellant, v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF the CITY OF TUPELO, Respondent-Appellee.
Judges: All Justices concur except SMITH and ROBERTSON, JJ., who dissent.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 195
Pages: 488–496

Head Matter:
Joyce PAULK, Petitioner-Appellant, v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF the CITY OF TUPELO, Respondent-Appellee.
No. 44226.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
Feb. 20, 1967.
John P. Fox, Houston, L. G. Fant, Jr., Holly Springs, for appellant.
Lumpkin, Holland & Ray, Tupelo, for appellee.

Opinion:
PATTERSON, Justice:
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Circuit Court of Lee County which dissolved a temporary writ of prohibition. This writ was directed to a condemnation proceeding.
We are concerned here with two lots located in a section commonly known as "Shakerag," which is part of an urban renewal project area near the central business district of Tupelo. The Housing Authority of Tupelo was authorized to exercise for that city the urban renewal project powers set out in this state's "Urban Renewal Law." Mississippi Code Annotated sections 7342-01 to 7342-20 (Supp.1964) ; and by resolution of August S, 1958, certain territory in Tupelo, including "Shakerag," was designated an urban renewal project.
On June 20, 1961, the Housing Authority approved an urban renewal plan, further designating the project area in which are located appellant's lots hereinafter called Parcels 1 and 2. Under the plan the Housing Authority was to acquire and redevelop 34.9 acres of land which "includes 7.5 acres of streets and alleys, 20.1 acres of residential (and related uses land) 8.2 acres of commercial land, and 2.9 acres of open or unimproved land."
It is not disputed that at the time the plan was adopted the area in question was a blighted or slum area.
The events and dates leading to this appeal are as follows:
In March of 1963 the Housing Authority filed condemnation proceedings against appellant's land. Shortly thereafter, and before a final judgment in the case, appellant removed or tore down a barn and an outdoor toilet from Parcel No. 2. Following the judgment rendered in September of 1963 in favor of the appellee, a dwelling was removed from Parcel No. 1 by the Housing Authority.
In June of 1964 the September 1963 judgment was declared null and void because of a defect in the proceeding of the court of eminent domain.
When condemnation proceedings were initiated again on April 20, 1965, the lots of appellant were vacant. In its application to condemn Parcels No. 1 and No. 2 the Housing Authority stated that the lands were to be taken by virtue of resolutions adopted January 2, 1940 (setting up the Housing Authority) and August 5, 1958 (authorizing the Housing Authority to exercise urban renewal powers).
Thereafter, a temporary writ of prohibition was issued for appellant and on a motion to make the writ permanent, the circuit court dissolved the writ and dismissed appellant's petition.
Appellant bases his appeal on the following propositions:
1. The land is not being acquired for public use because it will be sold later by the Housing Authority to private persons for redevelopment for private use and as such violates due process under the Constitution.
2. There is no necessity for taking the land because it is clear, open, and free of slum or blight conditions; and appellant is willing to cooperate with '.the Housing Authority in carrying out the purposes of the urban renewal plan.
3. The Tupelo Housing Authority in 1965 had no power to condemn appellant's land.
This Court has said that the question of public use is always a judicial question, and that the question of public necessity is essentially a legislative question. Pearl River Valley Water Supply Dist. v. Brown, 248 Miss. 4, 156 So.2d 572, 158 So.2d 694 (1963).
I.
Here a governmental agency has condemned land and is attempting to acquire it for the stated public purpose of urban renewal.
Government has the right to take private land for public use upon just compensation. This right is granted to the state government and to designated public agencies by the State Constitution and statutes. In this instance the Housing Authority has selected as a method of renewal and redevelopment the reselling of the land to private persons, subject to restrictions designed to prevent a recurrence of slums.
Appellant contends this is not a taking for public use, but a governmental exercise of power by which one private owner is deprived of his land and another private person is allowed to purchase the' land for private use.
In the Brown case it was decided that where the incidental power to lease land to a private individual or corporation is connected, with a paramount public use, the fact that some of the land to be taken is to be thereafter leased does not defeat the power of. eminent domain.
This decision was followed in Wright v. Pearl River Valley Water Supply Dist., 250 Miss. 645, 167 So.2d 660 (1964) and Pearl River Valley Water Supply Dist. v. Wood, 248 Miss. 748, 160 So.2d 917 (1964).
Appellant attempts to distinguish the present actions from those cases. There the use of land for lease to private individuals after condemnation was incidental toai the paramount public purposes of pollution control, control of access, and providing for recreational facilities. Appellant says there is no such public purpose to be served here. We disagree. The public purpose is urban renewal and slum clearance. This purpose is not necessarily fulfilled when clearance is complete. Here plans for redevelopment are to be carried forward under regulations which will insure against a recurrence of slums in the area.
Neither has the public use ended because appellant's land is now clear. When a blighted area as a whole is subject to redevelopment, the condition of the con-demnee's property is immaterial if the property lies within the designated project area and its acquisition is necessary to accomplish the paramount purpose of renewal. Hunter v. Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, 195 Va. 326, 78 S.E.2d 893 (1953).
A similar argument was made by a department store owner who challenged the constitutionality of a redevelopment project in the District of Columbia. Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26, 75 S.Ct. 98, 99 L.Ed. 27 (1954). There a unanimous court held that Congress may provide for redevelopment of blighted areas through its exercise of eminent domain powers, and it may determine that private enterprise can be used to obtain the object of redevelopment. The owner argued that this made the project a taking from one businessman for the benefit of another businessman. The court declared that it could not say that public ownership was the sole method of promoting the public purposes of community redevelopment projects. "The rights of these property owners are satisfied when they receive that just compensation which the-Fifth Amendment exacts as the price of the taking." 348 U.S. at 36, 75 S.Ct. at 104, 99 L.Ed. at 39.
See, however, Hunter v. Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, supra, which indicates that two states, Georgia and Florida, have held against such housing authority project because the primary purpose, as there held, was the commercial redevelopment of the area and not slum clearance.
We are of the opinion that appellant's first point is not well taken.
II.
Appellant urges that since the area is now clear there is no necessity for taking his land.
A member of the Tupelo Planning Commission, an advisory body to the city, testified that appellant's property was necessary in carrying out an overall plan for Tupelo which he said was correlated with the urban renewal project.
The renewal project planner testified that a major portion of appellant's land would be used for streets under the urban renewal plan. This testimony was objected to because there was nothing mentioned in the condemnation proceedings about taking the property for streets. As was decided in Pearl River Valley Water Supply Dist. v. Brown, supra, it is not necessary for the condemnor to show final plans for every part of the land taken.
The question of public necessity is determined by a duly authorized governing body in its exercise of legislative powers at the time the need is recognized. This recognition was made in the resolution of the mayor and board of aldermen declaring the necessity for urban renewal for Tupelo on August 5, 1958, and again on June 20, 1961, when the Housing Authority approved an urban renewal plan and declared the necessity for taking certain lands including appellant's land.
The burden of proof on the issue of necessity is on the landowner who seeks to show lack of necessity. Whether the taking is necessary is within the discretion of the condemnor and the courts will interfere with the exercise of such discretion only when abuse of discretion or fraud is shown. Pearl River Valley Water Supply Dist. v. Brown, supra.
There was no proof of abuse of discretion and no allegation or proof of fraud. For this reason we are of the opinion that Point No. 2 as urged by the appellant is not well taken.
III.
Appellant argues that when the eminent domain proceedings were commenced in 1965 there was nothing standing in the proj ect area except grass and trees; and' that the statute then in effect contained an express prohibition against the condemnation of "open land." Miss.Code Ann. § 7342-06(d) (Supp.1964).
The land in question was not "open" when the public necessity for taking was declared by resolution, and the conditions that prevailed at that time are what govern the necessity question.
Appellant argues that there is conflict in the pleadings. The Housing Authority condemnation order of 1965 stated that the land was necessary "for the rehabilitation, conservation and redevelopment of said urban renewal area." The urban renewal plan adopted by the Housing Authority in 1961 expressly excluded any land use for either rehabilitation or conservation. Appellant says this leaves only the term, "redevelopment" in the order for condemnation. Ap-pellee argues, and we agree, that the language of the condemnation order obviously refers to the rehabilitation, conservation and redevelopment of the land, exclusive of structures or improvements, and that the terms rehabilitation and conservation as used in the plan, in the context referred to, have reference only to structures or improvements on the land.
If a conflict does exist between the language of the order and the plan, however, the plan as an exhibit to the order is controlling under established rules of pleadings. See Williams v. Wilson, 241 Miss. 155, 129 So.2d 125 (1961).
' We find, therefore, there is necessity for taking appellant's land. Appellee declared the necessity for taking the land. There was no showing of abuse of discretion or fraud in its declaration of necessity. The effect of the urban renewal plan was to spur the appellant to clear his lots so they would not be blight or slum areas. Precisely because of the plan, appellant reacted to fulfill its purposes, but the results of his reaction cannot now be used to provide a defense against the necessity of taking. Necessity is determined at the time of the declaration of necessity and on the basis of the physical facts as they exist at the time, and what occurs thereafter in regard to the land is not controlling.
Appellant's land was taken for a public use. The use did not end when the area was cleared. Under the plan part of the land will be used for streets and other similar public improvements and part will be used for commercial and industrial facilities, the latter to be sold subject to covenants, conditions and restrictions designed to prevent a recurrence of slum conditions. The project area is located near the central business district. Plans for the area are intimately tied in with an overall plan for development of the city of Tupelo and are in the public interest.
The judgment of the lower court is affirmed and the cause is remanded for determination by a court of eminent domain of the amount to be paid appellant for his land.
Affirmed and remanded.
All Justices concur except SMITH and ROBERTSON, JJ., who dissent.