Court Opinion

ID: 9533059
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:27:55.219594+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:54.340818
License: Public Domain

Rosellini, J.
(dissenting) — The plaintiff challenges the constitutionality of Laws of 1957, chapter 42, p. 134 (RCW chapter 35.81), known as the Urban Renewal Law, and appeals from the judgment of the trial court dismissing the action with prejudice.
The appellant is a resident and taxpayer of the city of Tacoma. He owns and occupies a home in an urban renewal project area. His home is sound, modern, and valuable. It is in first-class condition, and is not blighted or deteriorated.
The city, in determining whether the appellant’s house met the standard of the American Public Health Association, assessed one penalty point against the dwelling. This point was based on the fact that the city found a defective refuse container which was subject to invasion by rodents or insects. The evidence in the record is that a house cannot be considered substandard unless it receives from 60 to 79 penalty points, and it cannot be considered in the category of slum housing unless it receives at least 80 penalty points.
The city plans to acquire most of the real property within *396an area of approximately 68 acres. After demolition of the buildings, it will resell or lease the land to individuals for private use. Upon the redevelopment and renewal, most of the Center Street project area will be restricted to light manufacturing. The remainder is to be used for private housing.
The city will condemn the appellant’s property in the absence of a voluntary sale. However, several residences within the project area are not being taken by the city. The explanation given for this discrimination is that the appellant’s property is needed for a site for future industrial and commercial use, and that the other houses are not.
The appellant’s assignments of error raise the question whether the urban renewal act violates amendment 9, Art. 1, § 16, of the state constitution in that the city will take his property and resell the condemned land to private developers — in short, that it will take his land for private use.
In no case has this court ever held that the power of eminent domain may be used to take private property for immediate private use, even where there may be an ultimate public benefit. Our cases have held to the contrary.
In Reed v. Seattle, 124 Wash. 185, 213 Pac. 923, 29 A. L. R. 446, it was contended that a proposed gasoline filling station in a certain street would be of such benefit to the traveling public that condemnation of private property for this purpose was warranted. This court said:
“Nor does the fact that an oiling station is a convenience to the public traveling in automobiles authorize the leasing of a part of the public highway for such a purpose. As we pointed out in the case of Healy Lum. Co. v. Morris, 33 Wash. 490, 74 Pac. 681, 99 Am. St. 964, 63 L. R. A. 820, public use is not synonymous with public benefit, and private property cannot be taken for private use through the exercise of the right of eminent domain, however much the public would be benefited thereby.”
In the early case of Smith v. Smythe, 197 N. Y. 457, 90 N. E. 1121, the court said, quoting from In re Niagara Falls & W. R. Co., 108 N. Y. 375, 15 N. E. 429:
*397“ . . . ‘The expressions public interest and public use are not synonymous. The establishment of furnaces, mills and manufacturers, the building of churches and hotels, and other similar enterprises, are more or less matters of public concern, and promote, in a general sense, the public welfare. But they lie without the domain of public uses for which private ownership may be displaced by compulsory proceedings.’ ...”
This same view was adopted by the Supreme Court of this state in Neitzel v. Spokane International R. Co., 65 Wash. 100, 117 Pac. 864; Matthews v. Belfast Mfg. Co., 35 Wash. 662, 77 Pac. 1046, and Healy Lbr. Co. v. Morris, 33 Wash. 490, 74 Pac. 681, in each of which it was held that a “public use” must be either a use by the public or by some agency which is quasi public, and not simply a use which may incidentally or indirectly promote the public interest or general prosperity of the state.
The case of Neitzel v. Spokane International R. Co., supra, involved a contention by a railway company which had condemned land for railway purposes and then rented it to a wholesale grocery company, that the use made of the land by the grocery company was a public use. We said that, while it might be of public benefit or in the public interest, no obligation rested upon the grocery company to conduct its business for the benefit of the public, and that the true criterion of a public use is whether the public may enjoy the use made of the property by right or by permission only. We emphasized the point that the terms “public use” and “public interest” are not synonymous.
The latest expression of this court is found in King Cy. v. Theilman, 59 Wn. (2d) 586, 369 P. (2d) 503, an action by the county to condemn private property for road purposes. This court said:
“We find the facts of the instant case bizarre, if not unique. From the record, it is apparent that the Highland Development Company could not have condemned relator’s property as a private way of necessity; the company had highway frontage and two feasible ways of approach. Though we do not think the county’s participation in taking relator’s property by eminent domain is a cloak *398to cover private objectives, the effect of this action is to allow a private party to do indirectly that which the law prevents him from doing directly. The ultimate effect is to allow a neighboring land developer to take private property for a private use. This action is the county’s in name only. It had no funds budgeted either to acquire relator’s land or to build the road across it.”
In Riley v. Charleston Union Station Co., 71 S. C. 457, 51 S. E. 485, in discussing the principles which apply in determining whether a use is public or private, the court said:
“. . . It is not easy to give a definition of public use which will be adequate to cover every case that may properly fall within the terms, and this case does not call for an attempt to define the terms. Some cases take the very broad view that ‘public use’ is synonymous with ‘public benefit.’ A more restricted view, however, would seem to better comport with the due protection of private property against spoliation under the guise of eminent domain. Judge Cooley, in his Constitutional Limitations, 654, says: ‘The public use implies possession, occupation and enjoyment of the land by the public at large or by public agencies; and the due protection of the rights of private property will preclude the government from seizing it in the hands of the .owner, and turning it over to another on vague grounds of public benefit, to spring from a more profitable use to which the latter will devote it.’ In Lewis on Eminent Domain, sec. 165, it is said that ‘public use’ means the same as ‘use by the public.’ These definitions involve the idea that the public must have a definite and fixed use of the property to be condemned, independent of the will of the person or corporation taking title under condemnation, and that such use by the public is protected by law. Fallisburg Power & Mfg. Co. v. Alexander, 101 Va. 98; 99 Am. St. Rep. 855. The case of Healy Lumber Co. v. Morris, 33 Wash. 490; 99 Am. St. Rep. 964, holds that ‘a public use must be either a use by the public or by some quasi public agency and not simply a use which may incidentally or indirectly promote the public interest or general prosperity.’ ...”
The majority rely on the authority of the slum clearance and urban redevelopment statutes that have been sustained as constitutional in 30 states, and by the United States Supreme Court for the District of Columbia. This argu*399ment is not persuasive, as is shown by the following illustrations:
In Berman v. Parker, 348 U. S. 26, 99 L. Ed. 27, 75 S. Ct. 98, it was decided upon a unique and novel theory that the exercise of the power of eminent domain is only incidental to the police power. “Public use” is confused with “public welfare.” The part that this theory played in the decision is best illustrated by a quotation from the opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas, speaking for the court:
“ . . . The concept of the public welfare is broad and inclusive. . . . The values it represents are spiritual as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy, spacious as well as clean, well-balanced as well as carefully patrolled. In the present case, the Congress and its authorized agencies have made determinations that take into account a wide variety of values. It is not for us to reappraise them. If those who govern the District of Columbia decide that the Nation’s Capital should be beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing in the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way.”
Many other cases are decided upon the theory that the power of eminent domain may be exercised for a public purpose, a public benefit, or the public welfare, disregarding the requirement of our constitution that it be for a public use. Typical of these is Gohld Realty Co. v. Hartford, 141 Conn. 135, 104 A. (2d) 365. From this case we quote:
“ ‘In this State it is settled that public use means “public usefulness, utility or advantage, or what is productive of general benefit; so that any appropriating of private property by the State under its right of eminent domain for purposes of great advantage to the community, is a taking for public use.” . . .’”
Seven states have forthrightly by constitutional amendment expanded the power of eminent domain to include the right to condemn property for the purposes of urban renewal projects. An illustration of this is found in Allen *400v. City Council of Augusta, 215 Ga. 778, 113 S. E. (2d) 621, wherein it is said:
“By an amendment to the Constitution (Ga. L. 1953, Nov.-Dec. Sess., p. 538), which was ratified by a vote of the people, the historic constitutional protection of private property, except for public purposes, was voluntarily surrendered by the people themselves. Thus this court is without power to protect such property as was done in Housing Authority of City of Atlanta v. Johnson, 209 Ga. 560 (74 S. E. 2d 891). This condition was referred to in Bailey v. Housing Authority of City of Bainbridge, 214 Ga. 790 (107 S. E. 2d 812). The Constitution as thus amended allows the General Assembly to provide by law that any city or town or housing authority ‘may undertake and carry out slum clearance and redevelopment work. . . .5 ” (Italics mine.)
Finally, we have consistently and uniformly construed the language of amendment 9, Art. 1, § 16, “Private property shall not be taken for private use,” as prohibiting the taking of a person’s property unless the public has a fixed and definite use of the property, and not simply a use which may incidentally or indirectly promote the public interest or general prosperity. See the cases cited supra.
To depart from our former interpretation would be contrary to the rule of State ex rel. Banker v. Clausen, 142 Wash. 450, 253 Pac. 805, wherein we approved and adopted the following statement:
“ ‘A cardinal rule in dealing with constitutions is that they should receive a consistent and uniform interpretation, so that they shall not be taken to mean one thing at one time and another thing at another time, even though the circumstances may have so changed as to make a different rule seem desirable. In accordance with this principle, a court should not allow the facts of the particular case to influence its decision on a question of constitutional law, nor should a statute be construed as constitutional in some cases and unconstitutional in others involving like circumstances and conditions. Furthermore, constitutions do not change with the varying tides of public opinion and desire. The will of the people therein recorded is the same inflexible ■ law until changed by their own deliberative action; and therefore the courts should never allow a change *401in public sentiment to influence them in giving a construction to a written constitution not warranted by the intention of its founders.’ 6 R. C. L. 46.”
This court is bound by our own constitution and by our former opinions construing it. Our constitution flatly says that private property may not be taken for private use.
The files and records herein disclose that the urban renewal area will consist of the 68 acres to be acquired either by condemnation or purchase. The plan is to raze all of the buildings on approximately 80 per cent of the acquired area and to sell or lease the land so acquired to private individuals for light manufacturing or business enterprises. This fact is made manifest by the plan, which provides that in 80 per cent of the area to be sold, the land uses are to be limited to 23 categories containing some 100 different types of light manufacturing and business enterprises, of which the following are typical: soft drinks and beer-
bottling works, canning and manufacturing of food products, wholesale businesses, private clubs, restaurants, cocktail lounges, taverns, drive-in establishments, undertaking establishments, banks, clinics, medical and dental buildings, blacksmith shops, and mirror works. The city is not authorized to engage in any of these activities.
The act also discloses that one of the dominant aims of the legislature was to provide for the transferring of the greatest portion of the renewal area to private enterprise.
Section 3, Laws of 1957, chapter 42, p. 140, provides:
“A municipality, to the greatest extent it determines to be feasible in carrying out the provisions of this act, shall afford maximum opportunity, consistent with the sound needs of the municipality as a whole, to the rehabilitation or redevelopment of the urban renewal area by private enterprise. . . . ”
The act further provides in § 1 (15) (d), p. 137, that the disposition of any property acquired in the urban renewal area shall be by sale or initial lease at its fair market value.
Section 6 (5), p. 143, provides:
“An urban renewal project plan may be modified at any time by the local governing body: ...”
*402Thus, the appellant’s property may be condemned and; if the city chooses to so modify its present plan, it may immediately resell or lease it to a private individual.
One man’s land should not be seized by the government and sold to another man so that the purchaser may build a better house, or enhance the beauty or aesthetic value according to the ideas of an artist or planner whose tastes h.ave the sanction of the government. In essence, the basic idea of this project is that government knows best what use a person’s property should be put to, and it will insist that it be put to that use by condemning it and selling it to another private individual who will agree to abide by the government’s plan. Under our constitution, the government does not have this power. It is violative of the right of an individual to own property and use it as he pleases, so long as he does not interfere unreasonably with his neighbors’ use and enjoyment of their property. Of course, the owner must abide by reasonable regulations of the use of the land, enacted by the legislature in the exercise of the police power. The state may condemn his land for public use, but it may not take it from him and transfer it to another private individual.
If urban renewal is a necessary and needed instrument of government to correct blighted areas but its use is foreclosed by the restriction of our constitution, the problem may be solved in one of two ways: municipal corporations may exercise their police power to condemn as a nuisance anything that is injurious to the public health, safety, morals, or welfare; or the people may amend the constitution to define urban renewal as a public use. One of these alternatives must be resorted to to achieve this desired end if we are to respect the constitution and the orderly processes of government; otherwise constitutional government will give way to political expediency.
The constitution of the state is a document designed to protect minorities against the appetites and power of majorities. Without the constitution, the safeguarding of the lives, liberties, and properties of minorities would be lost. *403Unless the people are willing to change the constitution so as to permit it, one man’s property should not be taken by the government and turned over to another to aid in the fulfillment of a utopian ideal of the state.
The urban renewal act as it is now written authorizes the appropriation of private property for private use, and as such runs afoul of amendment 9, Art. 1, § 16, of the Washington constitution.
I would reverse the judgment of the trial court.
Ott, C. J., Hill, and Donworth, JJ., concur with Rosel-lini, J.