Court Opinion

ID: 9686268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:37:53.717615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:17.038127
License: Public Domain

Levin, P. J.
(dissenting). In Renshaw,1 the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that a municipal housing commission established pursuant to the housing and slum clearance act of 19332 (the “act”), as was the defendant Flint Housing Commission, may exercise its powers and take necessary action to provide housing facilities for low income families and for *11the elimination of detrimental housing conditions without complying with local zoning’ ordinances.
The majority now say that, nevertheless, Flint’s “zoning ordinance may not be superseded except by an ordinance which necessarily is subject to a referendum” because a contract between the housing commission and a particular developer, defendant Cruse-Loren Corporation, was entered into “without the aid of competitive procedures at a total project cost of $3,566,812 and * * * it is clear that the impact and permanent influence of such action upon the community will be substantial.”
The asserted bases for distinguishing Renshaw are incongruous and unpersuasive.
It is expected that all urban renewal projects, small and large, will have impact and a permanent and substantial influence upon the community by alleviating the social conditions at which such projects are directed. It is not pertinent to the issue of whether local zoning’ requirements are preempted by the act that a particular contract between a particular developer and the housing commission was negotiated and was not preceded by competitive bidding.
Renshaw’s rule that the powers of a municipal housing commission under the act may be exercised without regard to local zoning is plainly applicable irrespective of the size of the project, whether more or less than $3,556,812, and irrespective of the manner in which the development contract is entered into.
The issue presented in this case was not considered in Parr v. Lansing City Clerk (1968), 9 Mich App 719, relied on in the majority opinion. There the Lansing City Council adopted, by what it labeled a resolution, a reclassification or rezoning of a tract of land for development with public or quasi-public *12housing. We ruled that the council’s action was subject to a referendum of the electorate even though it acted by resolution, not ordinance.3
It does not appear from the Parr opinion whether Lansing has a housing commission exercising powers under the act and, if so, whether the challenged reclassification or rezoning was in respect to a housing commission project; moreover, Parr was decided before the Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Renshaw.
In any event it was not contended in Parr that the construction of an urban renewal project pursuant to the act may not be subjected to a referendum4 and, therefore, that issue was not there considered or decided.5 And that is the real issue in this case; not whether Flint’s council could manifest its approval of the contract between the housing commission and Cruse-Loren by resolution or should have acted by ordinance. Conceding, arguendo, that the contract could only be approved by an ordinance6 and, therefore, the approving *13resolution functioned as an ordinance and should be deemed to be an ordinance,7 the central question remains: Do the voters have a right to veto a particular urban renewal project?
In Renshaw the Court said that the legislative intent under the act (p 594) “vis-a-vis other laws, whether enacted as statutes, charters, or ordinances framed under other statutes, is both conspicuous and repeatedly pronounced”; and that § 39 of the act8 (p 594) “adds a directive to the courts, bidding them to apply the act as ‘full’ authority for the purposes provided by its terms, ‘any provisions of the general laws of the state or of any charter to the contrary notwithstanding’ The Flint housing-commission is, thus, empowered to exercise its powers under the act without regard to general statutes or the provisions of its charter. The commission, thus, enjoys sweeping power to provide low income housing and to eliminate detrimental housing conditions under comprehensive state enabling legislation which expressly supersedes the vagaries of other state statutes and local charter provisions.
While all contracts entered into by a housing commission under the act are required to be “approved by the governing body” of the municipality,9 and, under the terms of Flint’s charter, its city commission’s action in approving the contract between *14Cruse-Loren and its housing commission might be subject to a referendum,10 I am satisfied that in requiring the approval of the local governing body the legislature did not intend also to subject particular urban renewal projects to possible rejection at the polls.
The act provides that if a municipality creates a housing commission pursuant to its provisions, the creating ordinance is subject to a right of referendum on the part of the people.11 This suggests that if the legislature intended to subject the operating decisions of the housing commission not only to the approval of the governing body of the municipality but also to voter disapproval, that this would have been explicitly provided for in the enabling act, as was the right of the people to reject the creating ordinance itself.
General referendary provisions in local charters are, in the language of the Renshaw Court (p 594), “subordinated” to the act and to the powers of housing commissions created under the act.
The plaintiffs-appellants have raised other issues but since this is a dissenting opinion and is not precedential there is no need to comment on them.

 Renshaw v. Coldwater Housing Commission (1969), 381 Mich 590.

 PA 1933 (Ex Sess) No 18, MCLA § 125.651, et seq. (Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 5.3011, et seq.).

 We declared (p 722, 723):
“Resolutions are for implementing ministerial functions of government for short-term purposes. Ordinances are for establishing more permanent influences on the community itself. (Citation omitted.) By no stretch of logic can we find that a large-scale rezoning of property for the purpose of providing for public or quasi-public housing and involving the building of multimillion dollar housing complexes, largely with federal grants, is only a ministerial function of government.”
Cf. Schrier v. City of Kalamazoo (1968), 380 Mich 626, 635, 636, and cases cited in footnote 6.

 Nor was it contended in Parr that a general referendary provision is inapplicable to a change in zoning because a referendum would be inconsistent with the procedures for effecting a change in zoning established in the city and village zoning enabling act (MCLA § 125.584, et seq. [Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 5.2934, et seq.]) See Elliott v. City of Clawson (1970), 21 Mich App 363.

 See Allen v. Duffie (1880), 43 Mich 1, 11, and authorities collected in Chapman v. Buder (1968), 14 Mich App 13, 20, in 4.

 The Michigan ease law appears to be to the contrary. See Case v. City of Saginaw (1939), 291 Mich 130, 150, 151; Kalamazoo Municipal Utilities Association v. City of Kalamazoo (1956), 345 *13Mich 318, 333, 334, holding that a contract can be approved by resolution.

 But see Schrier v. City of Kalamazoo, supra, pp 635, 636.

 MCLA § 125.689 (Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 5.3049).
The following section of the act, § 40, MCLA § 125.690 (Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 5.3050), pursuing this theme, adds that the act “shall be liberally construed to effeet the purposes thereof”.

 “All deeds, contracts, leases or purchases entered into by the commission shall be in the name of the city or village and shall be approved by the governing body of said city or village. Contracts for the purchase of necessary materials, leases with tenants and options need not be so approved.” MCLA § 125.661 (Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 5.3021).

 But see footnote 6.

 MCLA § 125.653 (Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 5.3013).