Opinion ID: 1283443
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: adjacency

Text: [4-6] Papillion is a municipal corporation, or city, of the first class. A municipal corporation has no power to extend or change its boundaries otherwise than as provided by constitutional enactment or as it is empowered by the Legislature by statute to do. [5] The power delegated to municipal corporations to annex territory must therefore be exercised in strict accord with the statute conferring it. [6] The burden is on one who attacks an annexation ordinance, valid on its face and enacted under lawful authority, to prove facts to establish its invalidity. [7] [7] Cities of the first class are given authority under chapter 16 of the Nebraska Revised Statutes, and specifically § 16-117, to extend their city limits, subject to certain limitations. [8] Sarpy argues that ordinances Nos. 1526, 1527, and 1529 are invalid in their entirety because the land described was not substantially adjacent to the city as required by § 16-117, but instead contained unlawful strip annexations. [9] Papillion generally denies this characterization and argues that the conclusions of its expert witness were unrebutted by Sarpy. We note at the beginning that we give no weight to Beccard's conclusions as to whether the annexation areas were adjacent as required by § 16-117(1) or whether they were tracts of land as also described by chapter 16. Rather, we agree with Sarpy that the maps speak for themselves, and it is up to the courts to determine whether the areas shown by the maps, and otherwise physically described by expert testimony, satisfy the legal requirements set forth by chapter 16. Section 16-117(1) states generally that the mayor and city council of a city of the first class may, by ordinance, at any time include within the corporate limits of such city any contiguous or adjacent lands, lots, tracts, streets, or highways as are urban or suburban in character and in such direction as may be deemed proper. (Emphasis supplied.) The city is specifically prohibited from annexing agricultural lands which are rural in character. [10] Contiguity or adjacency is also not specifically defined by statute, but Neb. Rev. Stat. § 16-118 (Reissue 2007) states that [l]ands, lots, tracts, streets, or highways shall be deemed contiguous although a stream, embankment, strip, or parcel of land not more than two hundred feet wide lies between the same and the corporate limits. [8-12] We have held that the terms contiguous and adjacent in annexation statutes are synonymous. [11] The terms mean adjoining, touching, and sharing a common border. [12] We have also explained that in order to satisfy the requirements of § 16-117, the entirety of the connecting boundary need not be touching. Instead, the boundaries must be sufficiently or substantially joined together. [13] We have held that '[s]ubstantial adjacency' between a municipality and annexed territory exists when a substantial part of the connecting boundary of the annexed land is adjacent to a segment of the boundary of the city or village. [14] A municipality may annex several tracts as long as one tract is substantially adjacent to the municipality and the other tracts are substantially adjacent to each other. [15] [13] We have explained that the root of the adjacency requirement is the idea that a city, both by name and use, is one entity, a collective body of people gathered together in one mass, not separated into distinct masses, and having a community of interest because they are residents of the same place. [16] So, as to territorial extent, the idea of a city is one of unity, not of plurality; of compactness or contiguity, not separation or segregation. [17] [14] So-called strip or corridor annexations do not comport with either adjacency requirements or the idea of a unified municipal entity. In Johnson v. City of Hastings, [18] the city annexed a 120-foot-wide strip of highway to reach a larger tract of land containing a community college campus. The annexed tract was shaped like a saucepan, with the handle attached perpendicular to the city. We explained that the annexation of a portion of a highway extending beyond the border of a municipality, connected only by the width of that highway, was an invalid strip or corridor annexation. [19] Since the boundaries of the tract sought to be annexed were not substantially adjacent to the city's corporate limits, the annexation was improper and the ordinance was null and void. Likewise, in Cornhusker Pub. Power Dist. v. City of Schuyler, [20] we concluded that the city's annexation ordinance was null and void when it sought to annex a U-shaped strip as it wrapped around a large county industrial tract until the strip could reach and annex a 26-acre rectangular tract on the other side of the county tract. While the approximately 30-foot-wide strip began parallel and adjacent to the boundaries of the city, it continued past the city limits for some length, changing directions and continuing even farther away from the city, and then turned up, running parallel to the city on the other side of the industrial tract. The 26 acres then bulged out from the final length of the strip like a flag on a flagpole. In total, the strip was approximately 1V4 miles long. We explained that there was insufficient adjacency between any of the annexed tracts and the existing corporate limits of the city to uphold the validity of any portion of the ordinance. Most recently, in County of Sarpy v. City of Gretna, [21] we found two ordinances void when each only sought to annex strips of highway running perpendicular away from the city limits. The city argued that these were not unlawful strip annexations because the annexed strips were not just a means to reach a larger, sought-after property. We rejected this argument, however, explaining: The invalidity of a strip annexation is not based upon the existence of a larger tract at the distal end of the strip, but, rather, upon the lack of substantial adjacency where the proximal end meets the corporate limits of the city. [22] We also stated that the shape of the tract to be annexed was not, in itself, determinative of whether it can be lawfully annexed, but that the lack of substantial adjacency was. Despite recognizing that the city may have had legitimate reasons to annex the highways for its planning and land-use control objectives, we found that there was not substantial adjacency when the connecting points consisted merely of the width of the highway right-of-way. [23] But so long as a substantial part of the connecting boundary touches the corporate limits, an annexation will not be void simply because parts of the connecting side do not touch the city or because portions of the annexed territory are narrower than the rest. In Swedlund v. City of Hastings, [24] for instance, we rejected the property owners' argument that the annexation of a larger residential tract was improperly reached by a narrow strip and that the annexation was void for its failure to be adjacent to the city limits. [25] While the abutting property may have been narrower than the other properties connecting to it, we explained that this narrower corridor was, in fact, approximately six blocks wide and was therefore not a strip at all. Moreover, the entire boundary of the width of the corridor was adjoining the preannexation corporate boundary. The other properties annexed were, in turn, contiguous to different parts of the six-block-wide corridor. Thus, considering the annexation area as a whole, we found that it satisfied the contiguity and adjacency requirements of the applicable annexation statute. Sarpy does not contest the contiguity of the main bodies of the two annexation areas identified in the appendix A map, section A of 1527 and section E of 1526. But it argues that in addition to the 4-mile tail along Highway 370, parts of sections A and C of 1526 are unlawful where they fail to touch the city limits. Sarpy also argues that under Wagner v. City of Omaha, [26] the court should have found the entirety of ordinance No. 1526 void, because the section B tail identified in the map was not severable from the rest of the ordinance. As for the arms of sections A and C of 1526, we agree with the district court that Sarpy has failed to show how these defeat the annexation's contiguity to the city. The arms radiate out from either side of a larger area that is touching the city almost the entirety of two sides of its roughly rectangular shape. The arms then run flush alongside the city, with an approximately one-third length of nontouching bridge on the Highway 370 arm and an approximately one-half length of nontouching bridge on the 96th Street arm. But in both instances, the bridges run parallel to some part of the city and are no more than approximately 1,250 feet from that parallel border. The apparent object of these arms is to further the contiguity and unity of the city's borders by filling in gaps of the city's irregular shape. Through the annexations, the city also seeks domain over easily identifiable lengths of road, rather than disparate smaller lengths. These arms connect the city together and make it more cohesive. The simple fact that there is some length of nontouching highway right-of-way does not make an annexation invalid for failure to be substantially adjacent to the city. Viewed together with the larger tracts annexed by ordinance No. 1526 and the points before and after these parallel bridges which reconnect with the city, we do not find these areas to be in violation of § 16-117. But we agree with Sarpy and the district court that the tails created by each ordinance, section F of 1526 and section B of 1527, are inconsistent with the contiguity and adjacency requirements of § 16-117 and cannot be considered part of the cohesive whole otherwise created by these annexations. Papillion points out that, unlike other cases considered by our court, the ordinances do not seek to annex simply the road corridors or reach out to a larger target of the annexation. But the fact remains that these strips are attached perpendicularly to the newly annexed larger corporate boundaries merely by their width. Furthermore, they stretch away from the city. As we explained in City of Gretna, [27] when a long strip runs perpendicularly away from the city attached by only the width of one end, it cannot be considered substantially adjacent. This understanding of what is substantially adjacent is not changed by the fact that the strip attaches to a larger area of land annexed by the same ordinance, regardless of whether Papillion's experts call this a single tract or not. On the maps of the annexations, these two strips stick out from the corporate boundaries like sore thumbs. Even viewed together with the other areas annexed, section F of 1526 and section B of 1527 clearly violate § 16-117. The question then becomes whether these violations invalidate the entirety of the ordinances allowing for them.