Opinion ID: 2710681
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Be in writing;

Text: (2) Include a description of the real estate sufficient for identification; (3) Specify the repairs and improvements required to be made to render the structure safe or if the city manager, or his designee, has determined that the structure cannot be made safe, indicate that the structure is to be demolished; (4) Specify a reasonable time within which the repairs and improvements must be made or the structure must be demolished; (5) Include an explanation of the right to appeal the decision to the city council within ten calendar days of receipt of the notice in accordance with section 18-61; (6) Include a statement that the recipient of the notice must notify the city manager within ten calendar days of receipt of the notice of his intent to accept or reject the terms of the notice. 26 be heard by the city council at a regularly scheduled council meeting.”61 The city council then has the discretion to “affirm, modify, or reverse all or part of the determination of the city manager, or his designee.”62 If the owner receives an adverse final decision from the city council, the owner “may appeal th[at] decision to the county circuit court by filing a complaint within 20 calendar days from the date of the decision.”63 Because this is a facial constitutional challenge, plaintiffs do not argue that the City failed to properly execute or enforce this procedural system.64 Instead, plaintiffs contend that the City’s procedural system results in an unconstitutional deprivation of a property interest absent due process of law because it fails to give the owner of an unsafe structure the procedural protection of a repair option before that property may be demolished. Because this argument is simply the substantive due process argument recast in procedural due process terms, the argument meets with the same fate. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeals determined that although BCO § 18-61 comports with procedural due process to the extent that it provides notice, a hearing, and a decision by an impartial decision-maker, “the [C]ity should have also provided for a reasonable opportunity to repair the unsafe structure” in order for the ordinance to pass 61 BCO § 18-61. 62 Id. 63 BCO § 18-63. 64 In any event, however, there is no question that the building official made a determination that the structures at issue were unsafe and that it was unreasonable to repair them, that he served plaintiffs with written notice of these determinations, and that the notice included the requisite contents. 27 constitutional scrutiny.65 We disagree. At least as it pertains to this facial challenge, due process was satisfied by giving plaintiffs the right to an appeal before the city council and the opportunity to appeal that decision to the circuit court. The essence of due process is the requirement that “a person in jeopardy of serious loss [be given] notice of the case against him and opportunity to meet it.”66 All that is necessary, then, is that the procedures at issue be tailored to “the capacities and circumstances of those who are to be heard”67 to ensure that they are given a meaningful opportunity to present their case, which must generally occur before they are permanently deprived of the significant interest at stake.68 Here, there is no dispute that if the city manager orders a structure to be demolished under BCO § 18-59, aggrieved parties, such as plaintiffs, have the right to appeal that determination to the city council under BCO § 18-61. Although BCO § 18-59 creates a presumption that an unsafe structure shall be demolished as a public nuisance if the cost to repair the structure would exceed 100 percent of the structure’s true cash value as reflected in the assessment tax rolls before the structure became unsafe, this presumption is rebuttable. To rebut this presumption and avoid demolition, the aggrieved party need only show that the repair is reasonable, a showing that may be achieved by economic or noneconomic means. It is then within the 65 Bonner, 298 Mich App at 716. 66 Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm v McGrath, 341 US 123, 171-172; 71 S Ct 624; 95 L Ed 817 (1951) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). 67 Goldberg v Kelly, 397 US at 268-269. 68 See Loudermill, 470 US at 542. 28 city council’s discretion to “affirm, modify, or reverse all or part of the determination of the city manager, or his designee.”69 When the city council decides, as it did here, to affirm the determination of the building official based on the evidence before it, that adverse ruling does not render an aggrieved party’s opportunity to be heard any less meaningful. To the contrary, it shows that the procedures in place are sufficient to provide property owners with notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Furthermore, vital to the assessment of what process is due in this case is the tenet that substantial weight must be given to the procedures provided for by those individuals holding legislative office—including members of a city council with whom the electorate has entrusted the duty of protecting the health and safety of all citizens—for “[i]t is too well settled to require citation that a statute must be treated with the deference due to a deliberate action of a coordinate branch of our State government. . . .”70 This is especially so where, as here, in addition to providing the aggrieved party with an effective process for asserting his or her claim before any demolition, the prescribed procedures also ensure the right to a hearing, as well as to subsequent judicial review, 69 BCO § 18-61. As previously noted, if the city manager determines that a structure is “unsafe” and that the costs to repair that structure would exceed 100 percent of the structure’s pre-deteriorated true cash value, it will be presumed under BCO § 18-59 that such repairs are unreasonable. The appeal to the city council afforded by BCO § 18-61 is thus the property owner’s opportunity to rebut the unreasonable-to-repair presumption by showing that repairs are reasonable. Clearly, then, the same reasonableness standard necessary to rebut the unreasonable-to-repair presumption applicable to BCO § 18-59 also applies to an appeal before the city council pursuant to BCO § 18-61. 70 Dearborn Twp v Dail, 334 Mich at 680. 29 before the denial of the aggrieved party’s claim becomes final.71 For these reasons, we conclude that plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate a facial procedural due process violation where they received all the process to which they were constitutionally entitled. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals reversibly erred by holding to the contrary. We therefore conclude that affording a property owner an option to repair as a matter of right is not required before the demolition of an unsafe structure and, furthermore, existing procedures in BCO § 18-59 comport entirely with due process.