Opinion ID: 1239187
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Slum and Blight Conditions

Text: We next consider Courtland's argument that the Courtland Property itself, standing alone, was not slum or blighted property at the time CURA's eminent domain proceeding was filed, thus precluding the exercise of eminent domain by CURA. This argument fails because under W.Va. Code, 16-18-1 to -29 the issue is not whether an individual property is slum or blighted property. The issue is whether an area, typically composed of many individual parcels of property, is a slum or blighted area. If an area is in such a condition, then an authority may go forward with an urban redevelopment plan, including the use of eminent domain to acquire properties within the area. See, e.g., W.Va.Code 16-18-4(b) [1957], which states: The governing body of a community shall not adopt a resolution ... [establishing a redevelopment authority] unless it finds: (1) That one or more slum or blighted areas (as herein defined) exist in such community, and (2) That the redevelopment of such area or areas is necessary in the interest of the public health, safety, morals or welfare of the residents of such community. (Emphasis added.) See also the statutory definitions of slum area  and blighted area  at note 1 supra. This individual property versus area distinction was discussed in the leading case of Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26, 75 S.Ct. 98, 99 L.Ed. 27 (1954). Berman is instructive on many of the issues that we address in the instant case. In Berman, the United States Supreme Court considered an owner's action to enjoin the taking of his property by eminent domain pursuant to the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act of 1945. In Berman, the Supreme Court stated: We deal, in other words, with what traditionally has been known as the police power. An attempt to define its reach or trace its outer limits is fruitless, for each case must turn on its own facts. The definition is essentially the product of legislative determinations addressed to the purposes of government, purposes neither abstractly nor historically capable of complete definition. Subject to specific constitutional limitations, when the legislature has spoken, the public interest has been declared in terms well-nigh conclusive. In such cases the legislature, not the judiciary, is the main guardian of the public needs to be served by social legislation.... [Citations omitted.] This principle admits of no exception merely because the power of eminent domain is involved. The role of the judiciary in determining whether that power is being exercised for a public purpose is an extremely narrow one. [Citations omitted.]    Property may of course be taken for this redevelopment which, standing by itself, is innocuous and unoffending ... If owner after owner were permitted to resist these redevelopment programs on the ground that his particular property was not being used against the public interest, integrated plans for redevelopment would suffer greatly. The argument pressed on us is, indeed, a plea to substitute the landowner's standard of the public need for the standard prescribed by Congress. But as we have already stated, community redevelopment programs need not, by force of the Constitution, be on a piecemeal basislot by lot, building by building. It is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary line nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project area. Once the question of the public purpose has been decided, the amount and character of land to be taken for the project and the need for a particular tract to complete the integrated plan rests in the discretion of the legislative branch.    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 32, 35-36, 75 S.Ct. at 102, 104, 99 L.Ed. at 37-39. (Emphasis added.) Thus, Berman (and other cases [2] following Berman ) stand for the proposition that it is essentially irrelevant whether a particular parcel of property is itself dilapidated, slum or blighted propertyif the parcel is located in an area that has been properly designated as a slum or blighted area. We conclude that an individual parcel of property that is not dilapidated or does not otherwise contribute to the determination that an area is a slum or blighted area is nevertheless subject to acquisition by eminent domain pursuant to W.Va.Code, 16-18-8 [1951], if the parcel of property in question is located within a properly designated slum or blighted area. Therefore, the circuit court did not err in rejecting Courtland's challenge to CURA's condemnation petition based on the allegedly non-blighted condition of the Courtland Property. We next turn to Courtland's related argument that there are now no longer blight or slum conditions in the overall Project Area. (Courtland does not challenge the validity of the 1984 determination by Charleston City Council that there were blight or slum conditions in the overall Project Area [3] in 1984; nor does Courtland otherwise challenge the procedural or substantive validity of the adoption of the Plan.) Courtland argues that the 1984 findings of blight and slum conditions are outdated. Courtland contends that the circuit court should have taken evidence in a de novo proceeding, and should have found that the Courtland Property is no longer in a slum or blighted area. Upon such a finding, says Courtland, the circuit court should have found: (a) that the instant eminent domain proceeding is unconstitutional because the condemnation does not now serve a public use ( see discussion infra at III. B); and (b) that the instant eminent domain proceeding is ultra vires, because the statutory prerequisites of blight or slum conditions are no longer present. Courtland does not explicitly contend that CURA no longer has the authority to engage in other redevelopment activities in the Project Area, but this conclusion would be the logical result of accepting Courtland's argument. If a present lack of slum or blight conditions in the Project Area is fatal to CURA's attempt to acquire the Courtland Property by eminent domain, such a lack would be similarly fatal to all exercises by CURA of its authority to acquire any property in the Project Areaincluding and particularly by eminent domain. In support of the argument that the circuit court should have considered the claim that there are no longer blight or slum conditions in the Project Area, Courtland cites to a number of cases where courts have overturned determinations of blight or slum conditionsin the context of challenges to urban redevelopment plans. However, an examination of those cases shows that each is different from the instant case. Taken together, the cases cited by Courtland do not support Courtland's position. In Regus v. City of Baldwin Park, 70 Cal.App.3d 968, 139 Cal.Rptr. 196 (1977), city residents successfully challenged redevelopment plan ordinances immediately after they were passed, on the grounds that there was no blight in the project area. In Bristol Redevelopment and Housing Authority v. Denton, 198 Va. 171, 93 S.E.2d 288 (1956), the court concluded that an initial determination by a redevelopment authority that there was a blighted area was contrary to the overwhelming evidenceand that therefore the redevelopment authority and the city had not established a sufficient basis to implement a redevelopment plan. In Sweetwater Valley Civic Ass'n v. National City, 18 Cal.3d 270, 133 Cal.Rptr. 859, 555 P.2d 1099 (1976), a civic association sought judicial review of a determination that an area was blighted. The applicable statutes held that a legislative determination that an area is blighted was a conclusive presumption, unless the determination was judicially challenged within 60 days of the determination. Because the judicial challenge was timely, the Sweetwater court reviewed the blighted determination, finding that it was not supported by sufficient evidence. And in Emmington v. Solano County Redevelopment Agency, 195 Cal.App.3d 491, 237 Cal.Rptr. 636 (1987), the local Board of Supervisors approved a redevelopment plan, based on a finding of blight, on December 13, 1983. The plan and the finding were immediately challenged in court, on January 13, 1984and the court ultimately found that there was insufficient evidence in the record to justify a finding of blight. In each of the foregoing cases (and in several other cases [4] that are cited by Courtland) there was a challenge to the validity of an initial determination that there were blight or slum conditions in an areaand in most cases, the challenge was made shortly after the initial determination. By contrast, in the instant case Courtland is not challenging the validity of the initial determination of blight and slum conditions in the Project Area. Rather, Courtland is asking the circuit court to make a new factual determination, based on allegedly new and changed circumstances. Moreover, Courtland's request comes over a decade after the Project Area was properly designated as a slum and blighted area. Courtland does not point us to any provision of law that authorizes a circuit court to make such a de novo determination. It appears to us that asking a circuit court to make such a determination de novo, as opposed to asking a court to review a city council or authority determination under an appropriate standard of review, raises substantial issues of exhaustion of remedies, separation of powers, and similar concerns. Additionally, as the Supreme Court held in Berman, supra, the viability of an incremental, multi-year, integrated plan for the overall redevelopment of a slum or blighted area would be fatally compromised if challenges to the continued need for and legitimacy of the plan based on allegedly changed circumstances were allowed as defenses to a condemnation petitioneach time an urban renewal authority seeks to acquire property to accomplish the purposes of the plan. We are not directed to nor have we found any cases or statutes suggesting that such challenges are, have been, or should be allowed. Urban renewal plans and their long-term goals would be crippled in their intended purpose of economic revitalization, if they could be interrupted and short-circuited just when the conditions that gave rise to the plan have arguably begun to be abated. Again, we are not directed to any cases or statutory language suggesting that such interruption or short-circuiting has been or should be permitted. As the Supreme Court stated in Berman, supra : [o]nce the question of the public purpose has been decided, the amount and character of land to be taken for the project and the need for a particular tract to complete the integrated plan rests in the discretion of the legislative branch. 348 U.S. at 35-36, 75 S.Ct. at 104, 99 L.Ed. at 39. (Emphasis added.) Our approach to this question is further shaped by our understanding of the deference that our case law has stated must be afforded to legislative determinations of the need by a public body to exercise eminent domain for a public use, and the limited role of courts in reviewing such determinations. See discussion infra at III. B. We conclude that absent extraordinary circumstances, the authority of an urban renewal authority acting under the provisions of W.Va.Code, 16-18-1 to -29 to implement an approved and ongoing redevelopment plan by using the power of eminent domain under W.Va.Code, 16-18-8 [1951] may not be challenged during the period of the plan simply on the basis that the slum or blighted conditions which provided the initial basis for the adoption of the plan no longer exist. Therefore, the circuit court did not err in denying Courtland's challenge to the condemnation petition based on Courtland's contention that there were no longer slum or blight conditions in the Project Area. B.