Court Opinion

ID: 9667559
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:49:22.492196+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:38.895052
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
The City, in passing the ordinance which provided for the under-ground parking facility recited that it was protecting the pub-*306lie from the hazard's of traffic, and declared it was executing a civilian defense plan. The ordinance stated that the action was a valid public purpose of value to the City, its citizens, and the public in general. Appellant relied upon the charter powers to do those things “needed for the government, interest, welfare, health, morals, comfort, safety and convenience of its inhabitants.” Other powers relied upon were the city powers over streets, and the power to maintain public buildings, works, improvements, and parks.
It is the broad police and public powers, granted in the charter and recited in the ordinance, which form the necessary base and foundation for the City to maintain the underground parking lot. Having established, by the charter powers and recitals in the ordinance, the City’s power to maintain the garage, appellant takes the position that it was, after all, not a general public power, but a local non-governmental facility which may be delegated or leased.
The question is one of delegation of public powers. Camden Plaza Parking v. City of Camden, 16 N.J. 150, 107 A.2d 1, 3, concerned a statutory grant of powers, but it is helpful in its study of the precedents. It states, concerning the public and governmental nature of underground garages :
“Action by a municipality to relieve traffic congestion through the establishment of off-street public parking facilities is the exercise of a public and essential governmental function, and publicly-owned lands used for such purposes are devoted to a public use. The parking crisis in the modern day threatens the very welfare of the community, and statutes and court decisions recog- . nize that public lands employed by public bodies for public off-street parking are devoted to a public purpose, R.S. 40:60-25.1, N.J.S.A., R.S. 40:56-1.1, N.J.S.A., R.S. 40:11A-1, N.J.S.A.; De Lorenzo v. City of Hackensack, 1952, 9 N.J. 379, 88 A.2d 511.”
Phillips v. Officials of City of Valparaiso, Ind., 120 N.E.2d 398, 402, after reviewing other instances of a valid exercise of the police power, stated that parking facilities were analogous:
“Parking facilities, the purpose of which is to relieve congestion of the streets resulting from the use of motor vehicles in streets which obviously were not originally laid out to carry present day traffic, have a definite bearing on public safety and convenience in the use of city streets. Wayne Village President v. Wayne Village Clerk, 1949, 323 Mich. 592, 36 N.W. 2d 157, 8 A.L.R.2d 357; State ex rel. Gordon v. Rhodes, 1951, 156 Ohio St. 81, 100 N.E.2d 225, 231.”
We conclude that the Charter broadly granted the power to the City to maintain the parking facility. It does not expressly, nor by implication, authorize the delegation of its power. 63 C.J.S., Municipal Corporations, § 1081. Under the wording of the Charter, for the power to exist at all, appellant must tie and did tie to powers in the nature of police and governmental functions, McSorley v. Fitzgerald, 359 Pa. 264, 59 A.2d 142. Those powers may not be surrendered. 30A Tex. Jur., Municipal Corporations; § 354.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.