Opinion ID: 1290055
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: revived issues

Text: The first set of revived issues concerns two additional attacks on the procedural validity of the entire plan. Firstly, plaintiff alleges that the notice required by ORS 215.060 [11] of the public hearing by the county board on the 1973 Plan adoption was inadequate. The following notice appeared in newspapers of general circulation in Washington County at least 10 days prior to the hearing on the comprehensive plan: NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING WASHINGTON COUNTY COMPREHENSIVE PLAN REVISION Notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held before the Washington County Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday, November 27, 1973, at 7:30 o'clock p.m. P.S.T. in Room 402 of the Administration Building of the Washington County Courthouse Complex at 150 N. First Street, Hillsboro, Oregon. This hearing will concern a certain proposal to recommend adoption by the Board of County Commissioners of Washington County of a `Comprehensive Framework Plan' for Washington County consisting of a text of approximately 150 pages and maps, a revision of the adopted Comprehensive Plans of Washington County pursuant to ORS chapter 215, as amended by Chapter 80 and 552, Oregon Laws 1973 and Article I of the Community Development Ordinance of Washington County. The proposed Comprehensive Framework Plan is on file with the Director of Records and Elections of Washington County, the title of such document being `1973 Revision, Comprehensive Plan (General) for Washington County, Oregon.' All persons having an interest in the above matter are invited to appear and be heard. The content requirement of the notice prescribed by ORS 215.060 has not been previously determined. For the standards by which the present notice is to be judged we may look to the law which has developed regarding notice requirements for similar legislative actions, e.g., the adoption of a zoning ordinance. [12] The law in this regard from all jurisdictions is collected in Anno: Validity and Construction of Statutory Notice Requirements Prerequisite to Adoption of Amendment of Zoning Ordinance or Regulation, 96 A.L.R.2d 449 (1964). The general requirement given there is that the contents of the notice must reasonably apprise those interested that the contemplated action is pending. 96 A.L.R.2d at 497. In particular, the notice must designate the property involved in the proposed action such that the recipients of the notice can reasonably ascertain from it that property in which they are interested may be affected by the enactment. (emphasis added) 96 A.L.R.2d at 504. When judged by the foregoing standards, the contents of the notice in question are in accord with the statutory notice requirements. The proposed Comprehensive Plan would affect, at least potentially, all land in Washington County. The contents of the notice reasonably apprised its recipients of the geographical scope of the proposed action in addition to specifying the nature of the contemplated action. [13] We affirm the trial court in its determination of the legal sufficiency of the notice in question.
A second attack was based on the admitted failure of the board to request the planning commission to provide a report and recommendation regarding the proposed changes in the pre-existing plan to be affected by adoption of the 1973 Plan. Plaintiff based this attack on ORS 215.110(3), which states in pertinent part: The governing body may also enact, amend or repeal with reference to any subject mentioned in subsection (1) of this section, an ordinance on which the governing body initiates action, provided that it first requests from the commission a report and recommendation regarding the ordinance and allows a reasonable time for submission of the report and recommendation. (Emphasis added). This assertion is without merit, since the application of ORS 215.110(3) is limited by its own terms (see underscored portion). First of all, it is limited to those situations where the governing body (County Board), as opposed to the Planning Commission, is the forum where the action is initiated. In the present case, pursuant to the Ordinance 120 procedures, action was initiated by the Planning Commission. Secondly, this provision applies only to subjects mentioned in ORS 215.110(1)  ordinances intended to carry out part or all of the comprehensive plan adopted by the commission. It defies logic to construe this provision as applicable to the adoption of the plan itself. See Sunnyside Neighborhood v. Clackamas Co. Comm., 280 Or. 3, 7-8, 569 P.2d 1063 (1977). Therefore, as we have seen, each of the three attacks on the validity of the 1973 Comprehensive Framework Plan of Washington County fails, and the Plan is valid and binding.
A second set of issues, mooted by the Court of Appeals holding that the 1973 Plan was invalid, but revived by our reversal on that point, involves inverse condemnation. Plaintiff alleged that defendant, through its enactment of Zoning Ordinance 125 and its adoption of the 1973 Plan, had rendered the subject property substantially valueless and had deprived plaintiff totally of the economic use and benefit of the subject property. In one count, plaintiff sought compensation for the fair market value of the subject property; in another, alternatively, it sought the rental value of the subject property from the date of rezoning to the date of action. The trial court sustained defendant's demurrer to each cause of action, reasoning that plaintiff's allegations of the new zoning designations showed a substantial beneficial use retained by the plaintiff in the subject property on the face of the complaint. Although the trial court was correct in its ruling, we feel the issue requires further amplification. For the purpose of the following discussion, we must divide the subject property into two separate parcels: (1) the bulk of the property which the zoning ordinance and 1973 Plan designated as commercial and residential, and (2) a small portion which the 1973 Plan designated as transit station and a larger portion which the 1973 Plan designated as Greenway. [14] With regard to the first portion, the trial court's ruling, based on the fact that the complaint showed on its face that the down zoning involved did not deprive plaintiff of all substantial beneficial use of its property, was correct. Where a zoning designation allows a landowner some substantial beneficial use of his property, the landowner is not deprived of his property nor is his property taken. Such a loss, if any, is damnum absque injuria. See, e.g., Oregon Investment Co. v. Schrunk, 242 Or. 63, 71, 408 P.2d 89 (1965); Morris v. City of Salem et al., 179 Or. 666, 673, 174 P.2d 192 (1946); Kroner v. City of Portland et al., 116 Or. 141, 151-152, 240 P. 536 (1925); Joyce v. City of Portland, 24 Or. App. 689, 692, 546 P.2d 1100 (1976); Multnomah County v. Howell, 9 Or. App. 374, 383, 496 P.2d 235 (1972) rev. den. See also Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U.S. 590, 592, 82 S.Ct. 987, 8 L.Ed.2d 130 (1961); Petterson v. City of Naperville, 9 Ill.2d 233, 137 N.E.2d 371, 380 (1956). This is not to say that the reverse is true, as we will see from our examination of the other two portions of plaintiff's property. With regard to the portions of plaintiff's property designated by the 1973 Plan as transit station and greenway, the allegations of plaintiff's complaint that the use of this property retained by the plaintiff was substantially valueless were not contradicted by the complaint itself. While plaintiff did not differentiate the different designations at trial, we see no reason that such a theory may not be considered on appeal. If the complaint does allege facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action for inverse condemnation, even if the claim was overstated as to the extent of the taking, it is not subject to demurrer. Cf. Kimbrough v. Smith, 255 Or. 123, 126, 464 P.2d 696 (1970). The question squarely presented, then, is whether the mere designation for eventual public use of portions of plaintiff's property by the 1973 Plan constitutes a taking under Art. I, § 18, of the Oregon Constitution, which states that private property shall not be taken for public use    without just compensation. Whether there has been a taking in this context has never been addressed by this court. It appears that the generally accepted rule is that  mere plotting or planning in anticipation of a public improvement does not constitute a taking or damaging of property affected (emphasis added). Annotation: Plotting or Planning in Anticipation of Improvement as Taking or Damaging of Property Affected, 37 A.L.R.3d 127, 132 (1971) and cases cited therein. The annotator summarizes the reasons given for this general rule as follows:    that mere plotting and planning does not, in itself, amount to an invasion of property or deprive the owner of his use and enjoyment thereof; that the projected improvement may be abandoned by the condemnor and the property never actually disturbed; that the threat of condemnation is one of the conditions upon which an owner holds property; and that the general rule is in aid of the growth and expansion of municipalities. Id. at 139-140. Some of the cases from which this general rule is derived involve documentary Plans: Bauman v. Ross, 167 U.S. 548, 17 S.Ct. 966, 42 L.Ed. 270 (1897) (highway and subdivision plan); Benedict v. New York, 98 F. 789 (2d Cir.1899) (aqueduct plan); Martin v. U.S., 240 F.2d 326 (4th Cir.1957) (highway improvement plan); Hempstead Warehouse Corp. v. U.S., 120 Ct.Cl. 291, 98 F. Supp. 572 (1951) (airport expansion plan); Weintraub v. Flood Control District, 104 Ariz. 566, 456 P.2d 936 (1969) (flood control plan); Selby Realty Co. v. City of San Buenaventura, 10 Cal.3d 110, 109 Cal. Rptr. 799, 514 P.2d 111 (1973) (general plan); Navajo Terminals, Inc. v. San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, 46 Cal. App.3d 1, 120 Cal. Rptr. 108 (1975) (land use plan) [14a] ; Arnold v. Prince George's County, 270 Md. 285, 311 A.2d 323 (1973) (master road plan); Kingston East Realty Company v. State, 133 N.J. Super. 234, 336 A.2d 40 (1975) (highway alignment plan); Re Philadelphia Parkway, 250 Pa. 257, 95 A. 429 (1915) (street plan). All the plans involved in these cases were characterized as being merely tentative and subject to change. See, e.g., Selby at 10 Cal.3d 116, 109 Cal. Rptr. at 804, 514 P.2d at 116. It is questionable whether, in view of our characterization of the comprehensive plan in Oregon in Baker v. City of Milwaukie, 271 Or. 500, 533 P.2d 772 (1975), as permanent in nature, id. at 513-514, 533 P.2d 772, and as dominating an inconsistent zoning designation allowing a more intensive use, id. at 506-508, 533 P.2d 772, these cases provide meaningful authority for the present one. [15] A series of recent New York cases have addressed the more general issue of when a claim for just compensation will lie when a police power regulation, in effect, deprives the landowner of all substantial beneficial use of his property. In Fred F. French Inv. Co., Inc. v. City of New York, 39 N.Y.2d 587, 385 N.Y.S.2d 5, 350 N.E.2d 381, cert. den. and app. dism. 429 U.S. 990, 97 S.Ct. 515, 50 L.Ed.2d 602 (1976), plaintiff was the effective owner of two private parks in an apartment complex in Manhattan. The zoning designation of the two parks permitted residential and office building development. The defendant-City amended the zoning ordinance, designating the parks exclusively for passive public recreational use with improvements as incidental to such use. The plaintiff in French, as does plaintiff here, made two claims for relief  both predicated on the defendant's action, which allegedly deprived the owner of any substantial beneficial use of its property. One claim sought a declaration of the invalidity of the zoning amendment as applied to the subject property, and the other, alternatively, sought damages for inverse condemnation. The Court of Appeals held there was no taking and therefore no right in the owner to compensation, and then declared the zoning amendment invalid as an unreasonable police power regulation. The court recognized the confusion which resulted from less than careful use of terms such as taking and confiscation. [16] The Court of Appeals distinguished the two situations as follows: The power of the State over private property extends from the regulation of its use under the police power to the actual taking of an easement or all or part of the fee under the eminent domain power. The distinction, although definable, between a compensable taking and a noncompensable regulation is not always susceptible of precise demarcation. Generally, as the court stated in Lutheran Church in Amer. v. City of New York, 35 N.Y.2d 121, 128-129, 359 N.Y.S.2d 7, 14, 316 N.E.2d 305, 310: `[G]overnment interference [with the use of private property] is based on one of two concepts  either the government is acting in its enterprise capacity, where it takes unto itself private resources in use for the common good, or in its arbitral capacity, where it intervenes to straighten out situations in which the citizenry is in conflict over land use or where one person's use of his land is injurious to others. (Sax, Taking and the Police Power, 74 Yale L.J. 36, 62, 63.) Where government acts in its enterprise capacity, as where it takes land to widen a road, there is a compensable taking. Where government acts in its arbitral capacity, as where it legislates zoning or provides the machinery to enjoin noxious use, there is simply noncompensable regulation.       As has been cogently pointed out by Professor Costonis: `the goal of [challenges to regulatory measures] in conventional land use disputes is to preclude application of the measure to the restricted parcel on the basis of constitutional infirmity. What is achieved, in short, is declaratory relief. The sole exception to this mild outcome occurs where the challenged measure is either intended to eventuate in actual public ownership of the land or has already caused government to encroach on the land with trespassory consequences that are largely irreversible.' (Costonis, `Fair' Compensation and the Accommodation Power: Antidotes for the Taking Impasse in Land Use Controversies, 1975 Col.L.Rev. 1021, 1035;   . 39 N.Y.2d at 593-594, 385 N.Y.S.2d at 8-9, 350 N.E.2d 384-386. See also Jensen v. City of New York, 42 N.Y.2d 1079, 399 N.Y.S.2d 645, 369 N.E.2d 1179, 1180 (1977); N.Y. Tel. Co. v. Town of North Hempstead, 41 N.Y.2d 691, 395 N.Y.S.2d 143, 363 N.E.2d 694, 697 (1977); Charles v. Diamond, 41 N.Y.2d 318, 392 N.Y.S.2d 594, 360 N.E.2d 1295, 1303 (1977). In summary, even if planning or zoning designates land for a public use and thereby effects some diminution in value of his land, the owner is not entitled to compensation for inverse condemnation unless: (1) he is precluded from all economically feasible private uses pending eventual taking for public use; or (2) the designation results in such governmental intrusion as to inflict virtually irreversible damage. [17] Compare Charles v. Diamond, supra . The complaint in the present case did not allege facts which, if proved at trial, would establish either of these two elements. Therefore, the trial court did not err in sustaining defendant's demurrer.