Case Name: Fieldston Property Owners' Association, Inc., Appellant, v. City of New York et al., Respondents
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1965-12-30
Citations: 16 N.Y.2d 267
Docket Number: 
Parties: Fieldston Property Owners’ Association, Inc., Appellant, v. City of New York et al., Respondents.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 16
Pages: 267–270

Head Matter:
Fieldston Property Owners’ Association, Inc., Appellant, v. City of New York et al., Respondents.
Argued December 1, 1965;
decided December 30, 1965.
Osborne A. McKegney for appellant.
I. Sections 435 of the New York City Charter and 1642 of the New York Vehicle and Traffic Law, insofar as said statutes purport to authorize the police or traffic departments of the City of New York to regulate traffic and, in particular, to permit parking of motor vehicles on appellant’s privately owned streets, are unconstitutional as taking private property without just compensation. (People v. Rubin, 284 N. Y. 392; Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393; United States v. General Motors Corp., 323 U. S. 373; Delaware, L. & W. R. R. v. Morristown, 276 U. S. 182.) II. Sec tions 435 of the New York City Charter and 1642 of the New York Vehicle and Traffic Law, insofar as said statutes purport to authorize the police or traffic departments of the City of New York to regulate traffic and, in particular, to permit parking of motor vehicles on appellant’s privately owned streets, are unconstitutional as impairing the obligations of contract. (Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch [10 U. S.] 87; Grand Trunk Western Ry. v. South Bend, 227 U. S. 544.) III. Neither the New York City Charter (§ 435) nor the State Vehicle and Traffic Law (§ 1642) authorizes the traffic or the police departments to permit parking on appellant’s privately owned streets. (Cogswell v. New York, N. H. & H. R. R. Co., 103 N. Y. 10; Ackerman v. True, 175 N. Y. 353.)
Leo A. Larkin, Corporation Counsel (Milton H. Harris and Seymour B. Quel of counsel), for respondents.
I. The privately owned streets of the Fieldston community are burdened by street easements in favor of the. public. Consequently, the streets are public highways, subject to municipal traffic regulation, which includes regulation of parking. The challenged regulation, neither a, taking of private property nor an impairment of appellant’s contracts with its members, is a valid exercise of police power. (People v. Rubin, 284 N. Y. 392; City of Clayton v. Nemours, 353 Mo. 61, 323 U. S. 684; Matter of City of New York [Decatur St.], 196 N. Y. 286; Matter of City of New York [Braddock Ave.], 278 N. Y. 163; Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393; Delaware, L. & W. R. R. v. Morristown, 276 U. S. 182.) II. A parking regulation is a valid exercise of police power. III. A parking regulation does not impair obligation of contract. (Ogden v. Saunders, 12 Wheat. [25 U. S.] 213.)

Opinion:
Fuld, J.
The plaintiff owns the streets here involved in fee and has obligated itself, by contracts with the abutting homeowners, to maintain and repair them until such time as title is acquired by the city. Although the plaintiff has permitted the public to drive on and over the streets for many years, the city has neither taken title nor ever sought to keep them in repair at public expense. The gravaman of the complaint is that the municipal authorities have taken it upon themselves to permit, as well as prohibit, public parking on these privately owned streets and this, the plaintiff claims, amounts to a taking of " private property for public use without just compensation " (N. Y. Const., art. I, § 7, subd. [a]; see U. S. Const., 5th and 14th Amdts.) and an impairment of the contractual obligation existing between the plaintiff and the abutting homeowners (U. S. Const., art. I, § 10).
To the extent that the municipality prohibits parking on these streets, we see no constitutional infirmity in the applicable statutes which empower the city to " prohibit, restrict or regulate traffic " on the highways — including a " private road open to public motor vehicle traffic " (Vehicle and Traffic Law, § 1642) — " for the facilitation of traffic and the convenience of the public as well as the proper protection of human life and health " (New York City Charter, § 435). These are appropriate objectives for exercise of state police power and, undoubtedly, the power tp " regulate traffic" includes the power to prohibit " parking ". (See People v. Rubin, 284 N. Y. 392.) Since the city acknowledges that its parking regulations are ' ' prohibitive " rather than " permissive ", we are not required to decide whether, under the Federal and State Constitutions, it may sanction parking on these privately owned streets over the plaintiff's objection. The plaintiff is entitled to a declaration, therefore, that municipal regulation of parking on these streets does not prevent the plaintiff, as the owner of the fee, from barring parking altogether. The police, of course, are obligated (and empowered) to enforce only the city parking regulations but the plaintiff, on proper notice, may assure compliance with its rules by rigorous use of traditional common-law remedies.
The order appealed from should be reversed and the matter remitted to the Supreme Court, Bronx County, for the entry of a judgment declaring the rights of the parties in accordance with this opinion.
. In an earlier action against persons actually parking on the streets, we refused to pass upon " plaintiff's rights with respect to police participation connected with parking " absent joinder, as parties, of the City of New York or its officials. (Fieldston Prop. Owners' Assn. v. Bianchi, 13 N Y 2d 699, 700.)