Court Opinion

ID: 9696099
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:36:33.959735+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:18.511683
License: Public Domain

Smith, J.
(dissenting). Once more we are asked to substitute our judgment for that of the proper legislative body with respect to the use of. certain land.
The property involved is on Kelly road in the city of. East Detroit, between Eight Mile ,and Nine Mile roads.
*542We are told by the city that the plan employed was to permit business establishments adjacent to the 3 heavily traveled east and west highways in the area. These 3 are Eight Mile, Toepfer, and Nine Mile. With this explanation we look at the zoning:
1. Adjacent to Eight Mile are 3 business blocks.
2. Residential then takes over until Toepfer is reached. One block on each side of Toepfer is zoned business.
3. Residential again takes over (except for a medical clinic properly authorized) until the vicinity of Nine Mile road is reached. The business properties start at a line 3-1/2 blocks south of Nine Mile and •continue on to Nine Mile.
The medical clinic above referred to stands on 1/4 of the block between Ash and Lister. It was rezoned in 1956 by the proper legislative authorities, for the described use. This change is the only change made in zoning between Eight Mile and Nine Mile roads. Other changes stressed by plaintiffs are in the area between Nine Mile and Ten Mile roads. They relate to subdivisions not involved in the present action. The charge of spot-zoning, so freely made by plaintiffs, is hardly justified by the single amendment between Eight Mile and Nine Mile roads before us.
What we have here, then, is a residential area, broken into, by business at the intersection of 3 main traffic arteries.
In seeking to void the zoning it is urged to us that use of property on Kelly road for business purposes is more desirable, as is shown by the heavy traffic thereon, its proximity to the J. L. Hudson Company shopping center, and the fact that residential construction has not kept pace with business construction, and, in fact, that the property is not suitable for residential purposes. The language of the deeds employed indicates no general planning in the area.
*543This is all legislative argument. Whether the legislative body was wise in permitting business zoning adjacent to its heavily traveled highways, or whether it should have been all business or, possibly, all residential, are questions addressed to its legislative discretion. I find nothing capricious in the decision made. Whether it is wise or unwise is not for this Court, or, indeed, any court.
In ruling upon the wisdom of the community’s zoning this Court misconceives its appellate function and misinterprets its relation to the legislative bodies of the communities of our jurisdiction. We held in Brae Burn, Inc., v. City of Bloomfield Hills, 350 Mich 425, that the invalidation of an ordinance on constitutional grounds required more than a fair difference of opinion. “It must appear,” we held (p 432), “that the clause attacked is an arbitrary fiat, a whimsical ipse dixit, and that there is no room for a legitimate difference of opinion concerning its reasonableness.” In Dequindre Development Co. v. Charter Township of Warren, 359 Mich 634, 641, however, a majority of this Court described Brae Burn, supra, as according “an unusually wide range of discretion to municipal authorities in the zoning of property.” The majority then disapproved a use of property which even the owner conceded presented a debatable question.
What the Dequindre Case, supra, holds is difficult to say. It seems to hold that when a city enacts a zoning ordinance it is exercising (indeed, we accord it) an unusually wide range of discretion. So put, the opinion distorts both the judicial and the legislative function. A parallel statement, and one equally without basis in our system of government, would be for the supreme court of the United States to hold that it accords the congress an unusually wide range of discretion in its legislation respecting the national defense.
*544Actually, the discretion of the legislative bodies is unlimited, save as to constitutional infringements. There is nothing unusual about this. But the belief that legislative bodies are in truth being accorded by the judiciary “an unusually wide range of discretion” when they merely exercise their normal governmental functions goes far to explain the hodge-podge of our decisions in the zoning field. Because if the zoning seems to us unwise we do not hesitate to strike it down, apparently on the theory that unusually wide though the legislative discretion may be, it is not wide enough to justify this.
On the other hand, if the statement about according cities an unusually wide range of discretion in legislative matters means simply that it is our duty to invalidate legislation not within constitutional bounds, then we would not strike down an ordinance if its classifications were fairly debatable. Yet in Dequindre, supra, we did just that.
There is an unhappy parallel in the law for the situation we face. It would be well to remember that when a court finds itself unable to cope with a new development in the law (and zoning is a relatively modern concept) the people do not hesitate to remove it, for all practical purposes, from the courts. With respect to industrial accidents the courts were so completely unable to deal with them on any save archaic concepts that the people, in desperation, vested administrative tribunals (the workmen’s compensation commissions) with the judicial functions, softened only by the word “quasi,” formerly exercised by the courts. For those who believe, as I do, that our courts are better equipped than administrative tribunals to adjust the differences between our citizens, such transfers of jurisdiction are depressing. It is to be hoped that in this field history need not repeat itself. We are only at the threshold of complex zoning problems. We may take judicial *545notice of the official census figures and of the magnitude of the suburban expansions taking place. If we persist in trying to decide from photographs and maps in Lansing, without even the benefit of a visit to the premises, what is the best use of the land in our growing communities, we may very well bring into our State still another administrative tribunal merely to keep our inept and unauthorized hands from meddling with a situation we have neither the knowledge, the skill, nor the jurisdiction to administer. These expanding communities must be permitted to govern themselves. It is possible that their judgment as to land use will not be of the best but there is no constitutional requirement that their judgment must be “correct,” whatever that may be. If the separation of powers doctrine has any meaning at all, it tells us that we cannot substitute our judgment for that of the legislative body.
Thus we are expressing no opinion as to whether the separation of business from residential properties at Sprenger street (or at the other lines of division) was wise or unwise. We are expressing no opinion as to whether this 10- or 11-block area largely devoted to residential purposes, between Eight Mile and Nine Mile roads, was good land planning or not. We are expressing no opinion as to whether it is desirable zoning to permit commercial establishments to border on heavily-traveled highways, such as Eight Mile, Toepfer, and Nine Mile. What we are holding is that such uses of property are not merely whimsical. When we thus hold, our judicial function is exhausted.
The decrees should be reversed. No costs, a public question.
Edwards and Souris, JJ., concurred with Smith, J.