Court Opinion

ID: 9687035
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:14:12.95319+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:23.872078
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
This is an action to enjoin collection of a special assessment for the widening of a section of Middlebelt Road levied against lots on residential streets having an outlet on the widened thoroughfare.1
The project was designed to eliminate traffic bottlenecks in the cities of Inkster and Westland caused by Middlebelt being narrower in those cities than it is to the north and south; the road was two lanes wide in Inkster and Westland, four lanes on the north and five lanes on the south. Safer and better access to Middlebelt is the special and peculiar benefit that assertedly justifies requiring the owners of interior residential lots to contribute to the cost.
Middlebelt is a county primary road extending north from the City of Inkster, in Wayne County, into Oakland County and extending south to the I-94 Expressway, Metropolitan Airport and beyond. It carries heavy traffic including large trucks going to and from the airport.
The Inkster section of Middlebelt was widened into a five-lane highway with two lanes each for north- and southbound traffic and a center left turn lane. Curbs, gutters and drainage facilities were also added.
The cost of the project was shared by the county *268road commission and the cities. Inkster created a special assessment district to pay approximately one-half of its share of the cost.2 The district consists of two land areas, one on each side of Middlebelt, 4000 feet along that road and 1500 feet deep.3
The trial judge found that the widening and improvement conferred a special benefit on the owners of interior residential lots justifying the special assessment. The Court of Appeals affirmed. We reverse.
"[T]he theory of the special assessment is that a special benefit has been conferred, over and above that conferred upon the community itself.” Fluckey v Plymouth, 358 Mich 447, 453; 100 NW2d 486 (1960).4 The Court held that the widening of a two-lane rural blacktop road that was "amply adequate” for abutting residential owners into a four-lane concrete highway capable of carrying heavier vehicles did not confer a special benefit on abutting residential property. The Court saw the widening, improvements and changed conditions as a detriment to abutting residential owners.
Ten years later, in Brill v Grand Rapids, 383 Mich 216; 174 NW2d 832 (1970), Fluckey was applied in setting aside a special assessment against residential property abutting a quiet resi*269dential two-lane blacktop road transformed into a four-lane highway.
Although Middlebelt could not be characterized as a rural road or a quiet residential street and these interior residential lots do not abut the widened highway, the plaintiffs here, as in Fluckey and Brill, were not specially benefitted.
Every public improvement is "local” in the sense that it is located in a particular area; libraries, fire and police stations and street improvements are all located closer to property owned by some persons than to property of others.5 The location of this widened highway closer to plaintiffs’ homes than to other Inkster properties does not in itself justify requiring a special contribution to defray the cost.
The argument in support of the assessment is that traffic moves better because the bottlenecks have been eliminated. Eliminating the bottlenecks improves access to and from Middlebelt and interior lots. Interior lots should increase in market value because access is better or, at the very least, there is the benefit of safer and easier travel to and from homes in the assessment district.
Middlebelt was acknowledged by one of the city’s experts to be a major thoroughfare. The need for the road improvements and their primary purpose was to facilitate the passage of traffic through the assessment district. See Brill v Grand Rapids, supra, p 222. As stated by one of the city’s witnesses, "Middlebelt extends from the freeway to the north, here, up into the next county. The traffic is there, and you have to make provision for *270the expeditious movement of that traffic, because that provides safer travel for the residents in the area and less of a nuisance factor” (emphasis added).
Another witness for the city testified that a master plan proposed the use of Middlebelt "as a major thoroughfare to handle truck traffic”.
While the improved road contains features such as the left-turn lane benefitting local residents, the primary purpose of both that lane and the need for it is to facilitate the movement of through traffic.
The benefits found by the trial judge — elimination of hazardous traffic conditions and of the deteriorated condition of Middlebelt, improved access to and improved movement of through traffic on Middlebelt — and the factors emphasized by the Court of Appeals,6 all relate to conditions brought about by the heavy use of Middlebelt by persons residing outside the assessment district.
The asserted benefit to residents of the assessment district is in being relieved of conditions caused by increased use of Middlebelt by nonresidents. But for heavy and increasing use by nonresidents, the road would have been "amply adequate” for the needs of the residents and businesses in the district. A five-lane highway was not required for their use.
The principle that persons who "are made to bear the cost of a public work, are at the same time to suffer no pecuniary loss thereby”7 does not *271accommodate an assessment to defray the cost of rectifying conditions mainly brought about by the public at large and not "specially and peculiarly”8 related to the use or needs of persons residing in the assessment district. The plaintiffs’ homes were not specially and peculiarly advantaged by restoring safe and ready access to and from a road adequate to serve their needs and which would have remained adequate but for pre-emptive use emanating from outside the assessment district. "There has been no enhancement.” Fluckey v Plymouth, supra, p 454.
The "elimination of open ditches and swales which occasionally contain stagnant water”, also mentioned by the judge, was of primary benefit to abutting property owners, and only incidentally benefitted interior lot owners. We respond, as did the Court in Fluckey, where it was asserted that abutting owners had benefitted not only from the widening of the road but also from the elimination of dirt shoulders and the filling of depressions or ditches along the old road: "The doctrine of de minimis is fully applicable to alleged benefits conferred by the elimination of problems so nebulous.” Fluckey v Plymouth, supra, p 454.
We conclude that where an existing road is adequate for the use of local residents and businesses and its widening and improvement is designed to benefit primarily the public at large and to ameliorate conditions caused by its increased use of the road, there is no special benefit to residential owners warranting a special assessment.
*272Reversed. Costs to appellant.
Kavanagh, C. J., and Williams, Coleman, and Fitzgerald, JJ., concurred with Levin, J.

 Abutting commercial property was also assessed, but no issue is raised regarding such assessments in this class action in behalf of the owners of interior residential lots.
Residential lots abutting Middlebelt were not assessed; see Fluckey v Plymouth, 358 Mich 447; 100 NW2d 486 (1960), discussed in the text, infra.

 There are approximately 800 homes in the district ranging in value from $10,000 to $24,000. The final assessment was $109.80 for single-family residences and $219.60 for two- and four-family residences.

 Fifteen hundred feet is approximately one-half the distance to the next major street providing access to Michigan Avenue, a state highway.

 "It is the settled law that special assessments may be sustained upon the theory that the property assessed receives some special benefit from the improvement differing from the benefit that the general public enjoy.” Lansing v Jenison, 201 Mich 491, 497; 167 NW 947 (1918).

 "An improvement is not a local improvement merely because it is constructed in a particular locality, since every improvement has a particular location, and is also local in the sense of being nearer to some persons and property than to others.” 70 Am Jur 2d, Special or Local Assessments, § 20, p 860.

 Police officers and firefighters "can reach their destinations considerably faster”. Residents of the district will be benefitted by "a safer and faster-moving Middlebelt [Road]”. "[I]mproved * * * access * * * enhanced the value of these lots * * * .” Johnson v Inkster, 56 Mich App 581, 588; 224 NW2d 664 (1974).

 "The justice of demanding the special contribution is supposed to be evident in the fact that the persons who are to make it, while they are made to bear the cost of a public work, are at the same time to *271suffer no pecuniary loss thereby; their property being increased in value by the expenditure to an amount at least equal to the sum they are required to pay.” 2 Cooley, Taxation (3d ed), p 1154, quoted with approval in Fluckey v Plymouth, 454.

 2 Cooley, supra, p 1153, quoted with approval in Fluckey v Plymouth, 453.