Court Opinion

ID: 9744251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:58:06.777127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:47.893345
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Schaefer, dissenting: By its decree the trial court rezoned for factory uses an area of 138 acres in the city of Des Plaines. The entire tract is vacant except for the greenhouses which, with their boiler plants and other improvements occupy 17 acres along the western boundary. The railroad that is said to “traverse” the property is actually its western boundary. A careful reading of the opinion shows that the surrounding area is conceded to be residential. The record shows that within a radius of 3500 feet from the center of this tract (and of course much closer to its borders) there are 1016 residential buildings. It may be that a legislative body could reasonably decide that a portion of the tract near to the railroad and next to that part now used for greenhouses could properly be reclassified. But it is hard to believe that a responsible legislature would rezone the entire area so that factories would be placed in close proximity to the residences that have been built around its borders. It is even harder to believe that this court would sustain such a legislative rezoning if the question came before it. The opinion reaches the result that it does by repeated characterization of the neighboring residences as “moderately priced.” But the protection of zoning is not restricted to high priced property. (See Kennedy v. City of Chicago, 11 Ill.2d 302, 308.) The opinion does not mention the losses that the many owners of these moderately priced homes will suffer when factories, with facilities for parking 2900 cars, are put in their midst. Yet the testimony of many witnesses was that the aggregate loss would total a minimum of $2,000,000. It would be hard to find in Cook County any area nearly a Square mile whose borders do not lie close to some important highways. Yet the opinion reaches out to discuss the two toll roads that lie ^4 of a m^e and more distant from this property. The influence of the airport upon the property is, in my opinion, exaggerated in the same fashion. I think that in this case there has been a gross usurpation of the legislative function, and so I dissent. Davis, C.J., and Hershey, J., join in this dissent.