Opinion ID: 1391168
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: land use obligations and due process

Text: Aside from restrictions on use, 8A imposes certain affirmative obligations as conditions to the right to develop. A. DEDICATION B-2 landowners are required to dedicate to the county a parcel of land 55 feet wide fronting upon the south side of Route 60. This parcel will accommodate a sidewalk adjacent to the curb 5 feet wide, a median strip 15 feet wide, a curb 2.5 feet wide, a service road 24 feet wide, another curb 2.5 feet wide, and another sidewalk 6 feet wide. Based upon property values prior to the enactment of 8A, the value of the property required to be dedicated was in excess of $850,000. By express statutory authorization, a landowner in Virginia may be involuntarily divested of his fee under certain defined circumstances. His land may be sold to satisfy a tax lien of the sovereign. Code §§ 58-1117.1, et seq. (Repl.Vol.1974). His land may be sold to satisfy the claim of a judgment lien creditor. Code §§ 8-655 et seq. (Repl.Vol.1957). His land may be taken by the sovereign for public purposes by eminent domain. Code §§ 25-46.1 et seq. (Repl.Vol.1973, Cum.Supp.1974). In every case of involuntary taking thus authorized by statute, there is a quid pro quo for the loss of the fee. In some jurisdictions, the courts have held that the zoning enabling statutes authorize local zoning bodies to require subdividers to dedicate portions of their property for public purposes (or pay an assessment in lieu of such dedication) as a condition precedent to development. [5] Associated Home Builders v. City of Walnut Creek, 4 Cal.3d 633, 94 Cal.Rptr. 630, 484 P.2d 606 (1971); Ayres v. City Council of Los Angeles, 34 Cal.2d 31, 207 P.2d 1 (1949); Aunt Hack Ridge Estates, Inc. v. Planning Com'n, 160 Conn. 109, 273 A.2d 880 (1970); Billings Properties, Inc. v. Yellowstone County, 144 Mont. 25, 394 P.2d 182 (1964); Jenad, Inc. v. Village of Scarsdale, 18 N.Y.2d 78, 271 N.Y. S.2d 955, 218 N.E.2d 673 (1966) (4-3 decision); Frank Ansuini, Inc. v. City of Cranston, 107 R.I. 63, 264 A.2d 910 (1970) (approving a city's authority to require fee dedications, but holding that a requirement that 7% of subdivided land be dedicated was arbitrary, null and void); Jordan v. Village of Menomonee Falls, supra, 28 Wis.2d at 618, 137 N.W.2d at 448; Prudential Trust Co. v. City of Laramie, 492 P.2d 971 (Wyo. 1972). In determining the constitutional scope of the zoning police power delegated to local governments in Virginia, we look first to our own enabling statutes. Code § 15.1-465 (Repl.Vol.1973) authorizes local governments to adopt an ordinance to assure the orderly subdivision of land and its development and defines subdivision to mean the division of a parcel of land into three or more lots or parcels of less than five acres each for the purpose of transfer of ownership or building development. Under Code § 15.1-466(f) (Repl.Vol.1973), such ordinance may include provisions [f]or the acceptance of dedication for public use of any right-of-way located within any subdivision which has constructed therein, or proposed to be constructed therein, any street, curb, gutter, sidewalk, drainage or sewerage system or other improvement. . .. Under Code § 15.1-478 (Cum. Supp.1974), recordation of a subdivision plat operates to transfer, in fee simple, to the local government such portion of the premises platted as is on such plat set apart from streets, alleys, or other public use and to transfer . . . any easement indicated on such plat to create a public right of passage . . .. Clearly, the enabling statutes authorize local zoning ordinances which permit local governing bodies to accept dedications by subdividers for certain public facilities. Arguably, the language of the statutes would support an inference that local governing bodies, in the exercise of their authority to grant or withhold subdivision approval, are empowered to require an offer and acceptance of dedications for access roads and other public facilities as the price of property development. Indeed, on brief, the landowners recognize the right of local governments to require adequate public access to lots subdivided and sold to the public. But that question, with its constitutional implications, is not before us and we do not decide it. We are not concerned with the creation of a subdivision but with development of individually-owned parcels of land. The precise question before us is whether a local governing body has the power to enact a zoning ordinance that requires individual landowners, as a condition to the right to develop their parcels, to dedicate a portion of their fee for the purpose of providing a road, the need for which is substantially generated by public traffic demands rather than by the proposed development. [6] Our enabling statutes delegate no such power. [7] Moreover, Article I, § 11, of the Constitution of Virginia expressly and unequivocally provides that the General Assembly shall not pass any law . . . whereby private property shall be taken or damaged for public uses, without just compensation. [8] The dedication requirement of 8A offends that constitutional guarantee, and we hold that it is invalid. B. CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE B-2 landowners are also required to construct the service road, curbs, and sidewalk at a cost of $37.13 per lineal foot (or $268,439.00 for the entirety) and to landscape and maintain the median strip on the land dedicated to the county. Although 8A does not speak to the question, we assume, as did witnesses for the Board, that once the road is constructed, it is to be maintained by the state. As the Board says, the police power is elastic. But its stretch is not infinite. If it were, no property right, indeed, no personal right, could co-exist with it. The protection of private property in the Fifth Amendment presupposes that it is wanted for public use, but provides that it shall not be taken for such use without compensation. A similar assumption is made in the decisions upon the Fourteenth Amendment. [Citation omitted]. When this seemingly absolute protection is found to be qualified by the police power, the natural tendency of human nature is to extend the qualification more and more until at last private property disappears. But that cannot be accomplished in this way under the Constitution of the United States. . . . We are in danger of forgetting that a strong public desire to improve the public condition is not enough to warrant achieving the desire by a shorter cut than the constitutional way of paying for the change. Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U.S. 393, 415-16, 43 S.Ct. 158, 160, 67 L.Ed. 322 (1922). The Board cites nothing in the constitution, enabling statutes, or case law of Virginia which empowers the sovereign to require private landowners, as a condition precedent to development, to construct or maintain public facilities on land owned by the sovereign, when the need for such facilities is not substantially generated by the proposed development. [9] The private money necessary to fund the performance of such requirements is property, and we hold that such requirements violate the constitutional guarantee that no person shall be deprived of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law . . . . Constitution of Virginia, Art. I, § 11.