Court Opinion

ID: 9706923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:55:26.488+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:26.001639
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Mr. Justice Musmanno :
The Philadelphia Parking Authority, like all parking authorities, is empowered to erect public garages. As a matter of convenience and practicability a garage can rise only to a certain height which means that the space above that maximum altitude ordinarily remains unused. In 1961, the Pennsylvania Legislature realizing that this non-use amounted to a waste of construction area, amended the Parking Authority Law of 1947 to provide: “Nothing herein contained shall be construed to prohibit the sale or leasing by the Authority of the right to occupy and use the space above any parking facility for commercial uses other than parking (except the sale of gasoline or the sale of automobile accessories), together with the right to use and occupy such space within the parking facility as may be necessary for the purposes of access to and support of structures occupying the space above such parldng facility.” (Amended 1961, 53 P.S. §345).
*343In 1952 the Philadelphia Parking Authority had constructed near the corner of 19th and Walnut Streets, Philadelphia, a garage, which, since it faced Rittenhouse Square, has become known as the Rittenhouse Square Garage. Next to this garage, on its west side, rises the Wellington Apartment Building, whose owners, for the purpose of being assured of continuing light and air, possess a deed restriction which prevents the Rittenhouse Garage from climbing to a height above 70 feet.
At the time the Parking Authority erected the Rittenhouse Garage, it built also a garage at 10th and Ludlow Streets which, it developed later, was not a very profitable venture. I do not believe it necessary to enter into any extended discussion of the financial situation which impelled the Parking Authority to consider a project which would add to the height of the Rittenhouse Garage property. It is enough to say that the Authority felt it had an obligation and need to enhance its financial prestige in the private bond market in order to perform its undertaken tasks. The Authority is totally financed by private funds raised through the sale of bonds to private persons. This Court said in Seligsohn v. Phila. Parking Auth., 412 Pa. 372, that a public parking authority is required to establish facilities which will sustain revenue bonds so that it will be financially independent of the government.
Accordingly, the Authority entered into negotiations with the owners of the Wellington Apartments to lease to them the air rights above the garage in return for which extensive and valuable benefits will accrue to the Authority. Briefly those benefits will include the following:
1. The lessees will erect at their sole cost and expense, according to plans approved by Authority, a modern multi-story office building over the Rittenhouse Garage, improving the Walnut Street frontage with an *344attractive lobby entrance and fashionable stores. Should there be default not cured by lessees or their mortgagees, the Authority will fall heir to this valuable improvement without a single penny of investment.
2. The lessees, at their expense and in accordance with plans approved by the Authority, will replace each parking space taken by the building construction by adding another level of parking to the existing garage facility, beautifying the existing facade of the entire garage with a modern screen facade, all of which improvements will be given over to the Authority without charge.
3. The lessees will relinquish, without charge, their valuable right to control the air space above the Rittenhouse Garage.
4. All costs of occupancy, including insurance, repairs, maintenance and compliance with municipal regulations, will be borne by the lessees at their sole cost and expense.
5. The lessees will save the Authority harmless from any loss of gross operating revenues and/or rentals from a particular tenant incurred by the Parking Authority during the construction period because of construction operations, and will post a bond in the amount of $50,000 to guarantee such reimbursement.
6. The lessees will pay an aggregate annual rental of $27,300 for the term of the lease.
7. The lessees will pay in full any and all forms of annual real estate and personal property taxes, assessments, water and sewer rentals and similar governmental charges levied or assessed against the demised premises.
8. Since the construction cost for the office building will be $10,000,000, this will of course give rise to a considerable tax rateable to the City of Philadelphia as well as a significant expense to the lessees. The demised premises will be subject to taxation by the City *345of Philadelphia and will not he relieved because of the basic tax exemption to the Parking Authority for facilities used by it.
An improvement of this magnitude can, of course, solely be productive of enormous benefits to the city in almost every phase of economics. It will also add immeasurably to the beauty of the area involved. It is statutorily authorized.
How then can there possibly be any valid objection in law, utility and justice to so wholesome an enterprise, so beneficial to the city government, so advantageous to the motoring public, so helpful to the community, and of such stimulating effect to the whole building program of the city?
The Majority Opinion does not show or even contend that the projected improvement can produce any result other than a beneficial one to Philadelphia. It only says that the agreement between the Authority and the lessees is invalid because the negotiations between the parties should have been conducted on a competitive bidding basis. But what was there to bid about? The lessees were the only parties that controlled the space ábove the garage, since the deed restriction guaranteed them non-construction higher than 70 feet above the ground. Thus no one could acquire the right to build above the Bittenhouse Garage except through the owners of the Wellington Apartments.
Does the Parking Authority Act of 1947 offer any barrier to the negotiations between the Authority and the builders of the office structure here contemplated? Not at all. Section 11 of the Parking Authority Law, 53 P.S. §351 provides that: “all construction ... by any' Authority, where the entire cost . . . shall exceed $1000 . . . shall be done only under contract or contracts to be entered into by the Authority with the lowest responsible bidder, upon proper terms after due' *346public notice has been given asking for competitive bids . . .”
It is clear here that the only requirement of competitive bidding is where the construction done by the Authority exceeds in cost $1000. But here the Authority is not doing any construction whatsoever. Not only that, the entire cost of the Rittenhouse Square project, estimated at $10,000,000 is to be borne exclusively by the lessees. The Legislature did not even require that the leasing of the air space should be on a “fair competitive basis.”
The word “competitive” appears once again, and only once again, in the Parking Authority Act, in §5 where the statement is made that the leasing of “portions of the street level or other floors of the parking facilities for commercial use . . . shall be granted on a fair competitive basis.”
It will be noted here that the phrase “fair competitive basis” is used in an illustrative sense, and not in a scientifically restrictive sense. The thought behind the language is to explain how street level and lower floor leases shall be granted — on a fair competitive basis, that is to say, all prospective lessees shall be treated alike. There is no requirement that there must be actual bidding where the street level and lower floor levels are involved, and all this comes within the sound administrative discretion of the Parking Authority.
But it cannot be emphasized enough, in the interests of fair legal interpretation, to say nothing of elementary justice, that there is nothing in the Parking Authority Law which inhibits the Parking Authority from entering into direct negotiations with the owners of the adjacent Wellington Apartments, since there was no one else to negotiate with, the Wellington owners being the only persons who could acquire the full rights, because of the deed restrictions already mentioned, to build over the Rittenhouse Square Garage.
*347And then one cannot overlook the common sense observation that there are situations, peculiar in themselves, where bidding is not only superfluous but wholly valueless. The Silsby Mfg. Co. v. Allentown case, 153 Pa. 319 is in point. There, the City of Allentown entered into a contract for the purchase of a patent flue for use in a fire engine built by the Silsby Manufacturing Co. The City resisted liability, asserting the article was purchased by direct negotiation without resort to competitive bidding. Our Court held that under those circumstances, competitive bidding was not necessary: “The flues were made only by the plaintiff. They could be bought nowhere else. Competition under such circumstances are impossible. Ratio cessante cessit lex. The law does not insist on what is impossible, or absolutely useless.”
Obviously, it would have been useless to advertise for bids for the leasing of the air space definitely controlled by the adjacent apartment building owners and definitely not controlled by the Parking Authority. To require the procedure of public competitive building under such circumstances would be an exercise in futility. The law does not demand the doing of a vain thing.1
Thus, no matter what may be said about the Academy House project which is also involved in this litigation, it is as clear as language can make it, that the Rittenhouse Square project comes squarely within the law, and it could only be through arbitrary judgment or caprice to strike down this splendid project which will redound to the best welfare of the City from every possible angle viewed.
*348To deny the Rittenhouse project would mean that the extremely valuable space above the Rittenhouse Square could never be utilized because if it cannot be used by Wellington, .no one else will have any right to use it. To destroy the utilization of property rights in this fashion cannot be a way in which to increase respect for law or for the courts.
Indeed even able counsel for appellants, at the oral argument before this Court, conceded that the appel-. lants had no case against Rittenhouse Square Project. He admitted that unless the Parking Authority Act as amended in 1961 should be declared unconstitutional or otherwise be nullified by this Court (and he stated no grounds for such nullification) the Rittenhouse Square project must be upheld by this Court.
It is not contended here that the Parking Authority acted in bad faith or arbitrarily. It is not even asserted that the Authority abused its discretion. In Schwartz v. Urban Redev. A. of Pgh., 416 Pa. 503, this Court, speaking through Justice O’Brien, said: “We cannot and will not substitute our judgment of what is a sound economic and social redevelopment of the subject project for that of the Authority, the Authority’s judgment having been based on a proper exercise of the discretion vested in it by law.”
What is a sound economic development of the air space which the Legislature has authorized and empowered the Parking Authority to lease for commercial purposes, is a matter for the sound discretion of the Authority — not the Courts.
The fact that the lessee will have the option to purchase (a provision customarily a part of long-term leases), can not justify an injunction to restrain the construction of the superstructure pursuant to the lease. The option in question is not even exercisable until sometime between 1993 and 2003. And, more important than anything else, that option may not be *349exercised until every single penny of the bonds issued to construct not only the garage at Rittenhouse Square but the one at 10th and Ludlow Streets as well will have been paid in full. The option price indicated was sustained by two separate independent appraisals.
The record overwhelmingly supports the finding of the learned chancellor in the court below and affirmed by the court en banc, that the lease in its entirety was within the sound discretion of the Parking Authority. To strike down this legitimate wholesome project would be to tediously roll a boulder in the path of construction progress, it would be to throw a monkey wrench in the machinery of urban development, it would be to spread a pall of discouragement over municipal, traffic and economic planners wrestling with the distressing problem of adequate parking in the city.
I do not think this Court should do this. The Legislature has, through the amendment of 1961, placed its blessings on projects of this specific character; the law authorizes this particular project; good, sound common sense recommends it; progress demands it. Since this Court has found nothing to displace the findings of the court below, since it cannot show that the Authority abused its discretion, the decision of the court on the Rittenhouse Square Project should absolutely be affirmed.
I
Academy House Project
The bulk of the Majority Opinion is devoted to an analysis of the Academy House Project. There is no need to reiterate the basic elements of the challenged transactions entered into by the Philadelphia Parking Authority and National Land and Investment Company since they are fully detailed in the Majority Opin*350ion. But it is necessary to pnt those facts into proper perspective and to analyze the appellants’ contention that this transaction is in violation of law.
The Academy House project involves the construction of a seven story public parking garage and the building of a high rise apartment house above it.
A summary of the essential terms of the Academy House transaction is clearly and succinctly set forth by the learned chancellor in his findings of fact which have been affirmed by the court en banc. No one even contends that the court below lacked evidence to support these findings of fact. Hence they are conclusive. Briefly the more essential ones state that:
“(4) The site of the project is the block in center City Philadelphia bounded by Watts, Spruce, Broad, and Locust Streets. The southern part of this block is owned by the City and is leased to the Parking Authority, which operates it as an open-air parking lot. The northern part (the balance) is owned by National Land & Investment Co., a Pennsylvania corporation with its principal office in Philadelphia, and is the site of the John Bartram Hotel (now boarded up).
“(5) On October 31, 1963, the National Land & Investment Co. wrote a letter of intent to the Parking Authority, which the Authority accepted at its meeting of December 11, 1963.
“(6) The project as outlined in the letter of intent provides that the Parking Authority will acquire the block bounded by Watts, Spruce, Broad, and Locust Streets, and after having the John Bartram Hotel demolished, will have built a garage of about seven stories, with about 850 parking spaces, which will cover the block. To finance the cost of these steps the Authority will issue long term revenue bonds, secured by revenues to be received by the Authority from activities in the project. The Authority will then lease the *351garage to National Land & Investment Co. The lease will allow National to occupy and use the air space above the garage. National Land will operate the garage as a public parking garage, and will sublet portions of the first floor and basement for commercial use on a fair competitive basis, all in accordance with the Parking Authority Law and the Authority’s rules and regulations. In the air space above the garage, National Land will construct, maintain, and operate at its expense, a high-rise apartment building of one or two towers and with about 1,000 apartments. As rent for the garage and the air space above it, National Land will pay the Parking Authority an amount that will include the principal and interest on the bonds issued by the Authority to finance the erection of the garage, and the term of National Land’s lease of the garage and air space will be coordinated with the life of these bonds.
“(9) Although not mentioned in the letter of intent, the plan is that the cost of building the garage will be determined by competitive bids to be received by the Authority.
“(10) ... it is contemplated that at the expiration of National Land’s lease, the Authority will have the option to buy, at a price not yet agreed upon, the land and all improvements on it, including the apartment building.”
In Exhibit P-22 (860a), the rentals which National is required to pay are explicitly set forth as follows:
“3. National shall pay as rentals during the initial term of the lease, the aggregate of (a) ‘debt service rentals’ which shall be an amount sufficient to pay in full the principal and interest on the bonds, less capitalized interest; (b) authority rentals which shall be $5000 for the first year, $10,000 for the second, $15,000 for the third, $20,000 for the fourth, $25,000 for the fifth and every year thereafter, except for the last ten *352years for each of which it shall be $30,000 and (c) ‘excess rentals’ which shall be a percentage to be agreed upon of the excess of the aggregate for each year of the gross receipts from parking operations within the Project and the rentals received by National for the occupancy of said commercial space, over an amount to be agreed upon.
“4. National shall pay as rentals during any extension term of the lease, the aggregate of (a) said ‘excess rentals’, and (b) ‘extension rentals’, which shall be annually an amount equal to five (5%) per cent of the purchase price and all other costs paid or incurred by the Authority in acquiring and clearing all of the land hereinbefore referred to, or five (5%>) per cent of the appraisal of the land within the Project, whichever is greater.” (p. 861a)
A more specific, salutary agreement, conducive to the best interests of the City of Philadelphia, in keeping with the spirit of the times, and destined to greatly benefit the motoring public, it would be difficult to find. It must be stated at the very outset that the cost of the public parking facility portion of the Academy House Project will be financed entirely by the Authority’s revenue bonds. In turn, the lessee (National Land) will pay as part of the rent all sums necessary to meet the principal and interest on those bonds. Here again, and this must be emphasized, not a single penny of public funds will be expended. Here indeed, manna will be descending from the top of the skyscraper apartment house to an Authority, whose pantry needs replenishment. The lessees will pay for every expense required for the construction of the building. What does the Authority give in return? The empty air above the garage. Could there ever be a more fruitful return than oranges falling from invisible trees growing above the top of one’s own back yard?
*353I repeat, no governmental funds from any source, federal, state, or city, will be expended on tbe Academy House Project.
Tbe public parking facility of tbe Project will be operated as a public parking facility in accordance with tbe Public Parking Law so that it will be available to all members of the public regardless as to whether or not they are tenants of the apartment house.
The Philadelphia Parking Authority is in dire need of this project. The chancellor found in his 45th finding of fact, which was based on ample evidence in the record and also affirmed by the court en banc, that: “The Parking Authority must operate on the basis of its structures being self-supporting, and it receives no subsidy (such as, for example, a portion of revenues from parking meters) to assist it in meeting its expenses. Accordingly, experience has shown that its bonds are not readily salable unless secured by revenue in addition to that received from a garage. In this case, as stated above in the findings on the Proposed Project, such additional security would be provided by National Land & Investment Go/s guarantee to pay the principal and interest on the bonds.” (p. 710a) (Emphasis added)
Indeed, as the chancellor indicated in his adjudication “thus, although it is true that the tenants in the apartment building will use at least some of the parking spaces in the Parking Authority garage, it is likewise true that without the apartment building there would be no garage at all”.
Despite the chancellor’s detailed findings of fact, not one of which was even challenged in this Court, the Majority Opinion advances the following reasons for invalidating the Academy House Project:
1. The transaction was negotiated rather than obtained as the result of competitive bidding.
2. The Parking Authority exceeded its statutory authority.
*3543. The Project was primarily and predominantly private in nature.
4. There was no demonstrable present or future anticipated parking need for the facility proposed.
In reaching these conclusions, the majority used wrong facts, applied wrong law, and, therefore, necessarily arrived at wrong conclusions.
What the Majority has done here is to substitute its own judgment and its own views on strictly economic and administrative matters involving the exercise of administrative jxidgment, for that of the Parking Authority entrusted under the law to exercise that judgment. This it has no right to do. (Schwartz v. Urban Redev., supra.) A reading of the Majority Opinion against the background of the uncontested facts reveals that the Majority is arrogating unto itself the powers and duties of a super Parking Authority, which, it is unnecessary to state, it certainly has no constitutional power to do.
Without an expert staff, without the indispensable experience, without the time needed to investigate at first hand each and every facet of the reasons for concluding that there was a public need for this parking facility and that the Academy House transaction was the feasible and proper method of supplying that need, the Majority proceeds to denounce the Academy House transaction, not because the law impels that denunciation but only because the Majority says in effect: “We doubt that this is a good place for a parking garage,” and “If it is, we don’t believe this is a good way to bring it about.”
This is an extra-judicial performance which this Court has constantly frowned upon in the past and will unquestionably continue to discountenance.2 It should do so here.
*355In exercising its discretion to proceed with the Project, the Authority considered 39 separate fact situations, none of which is challenged in point of physical reality. Most of them are simply ignored by the Majority. A few are cavalierly discarded as a matter of opinion! What the Majority in effect says that if its members sat with the Parking Authority they would not concur in the Authority’s judgment. I venture to suggest that if the Majority were factually aware of these 39 different material situations, it would not reject, but concur in the conclusion of the Authority.
However, regardless of all this, and I repeat, under our well reasoned and hitherto uninterrupted line of decisions, this Court has always refrained from substituting its judgment for that of an administrative body properly performing its duty. We should not now depart from that salutary policy. Any modifications of that policy would be not a mere exercise in semantics; it would result in a procedure where the non-expert views of appellate judges would be substituted for those of the expert agencies. It would lead to a lack of uniformity in the important business of public parking or whatever else might be the function and mission of the particular agency involved. It would result in mere academic theorizing displacing the iron and steel beams, girders and columns which go into constructing the edifice of an orderly well-organized society.
When, as here, the court below has inquired fully into the matter and has upheld the transaction on the basis of record facts, we should not overrule both the court below and the administrative agency.
I will now consider seriatim, the appellant’s grounds of challenge upheld by the Majority.
*356(1) The transaction resulted from negotiated agreements rather than from competitive bidding
We have already considered whether and to what extent competitive bidding is required in this Mnd of transaction. In that part of this Opinion relating to the Rittenhouse Square Project, I have pointed out that in the Parking Authority Law of 1947, as amended, the only requirement of competitive bidding refers to construction done by the Authority where the entire cost exceeds $1000. As the learned chancellor stated in his adjudication, the chairman of the Authority testified without contradiction that the Authority intends to follow this procedure in contracting for the construction of the garage. Therefore, the plaintiffs can have and should have no complaint in this respect.
So far as the lease of the air rights for the construction of the superstructure is concerned, competitive bidding is not required. As in the case of Rittenhouse Square Project, the transaction did not lend itself to competitive bidding because of its uniqueness. To make the Project a sound economically feasible development, the site occupied by the John Bartram Hotel was required. It would have been futile and useless to demand competitive bidding for lease of air space, a substantial part of which includes space above the ground on which the old John Bartram Hotel now rests.
Once it is concluded (as it must be) under the Parking Authority Law that the Parking Authority has the power to build a garage and lease the space above it, it must inevitably follow that to require competitive bidding under the peculiar circumstances here involved would be to demand the performance of a vain act. Accordingly, it was legal and proper to negotiate the contract. Silsby Mfg. Co. v. Allentown, supra. Again, as I also pointed out in that part of this Opin*357ion relating to the Rittenhouse Square Project, there was no requirement for following competitive bidding procedures in so far as the lease of the first floor of the garage was concerned. In holding to the contrary, the Majority completely confuses the difference between contracting on a “fair competitive basis” and contracting as a result of “competitive bidding”. Under the circumstances of this case, the entire project was leased on a fair competitive basis. There is no showing to the contrary.
(2) That the Parking Authority had exceeded its statutory authority
Nowhere does the Majority Opinion specify in what respect the Parking Authority has exceeded its statutory authority. Its authority is to build and maintain public parking garages and other parking facilities. The Legislature has expressly provided that in doing so, the Authority may sell or lease the space above the parking garages for commercial use other than parking. That is what is contemplated in the Academy House Project, nothing else.
(3) That the Project was primarily and predominantly private in nature
The Majority Opinion admits that even in the case of condemnation of private property, the fact that there may be an incidental benefit to private parties will not invalidate the taking, but it goes on to say that “the Parking Authority Law confers no power on the Authority to act other than for the public benefit in providing for off-street parking facilities. Accordingly, the Academy House Project may not be permitted to proceed unless as presently envisioned it will result predominantly in public benefit through the crea*358tion of additional off-street public parking facilities commensurate with the public investment in the Project.”
The key to the basic misunderstanding by the Majority of the basic issue resides in the phrase, “public investment in the Project.” This is a statement woven out of a conjuration floating higher than the roof of the projected apartment house. Not one single Lincoln penny of public moneys, — federal, state or city— will be invested in the project! We are not dealing here with a case in which a governmental agency is employing public funds to acquire property. We do not have to do here with taxpayers’ moneys. We are not contemplating here any raid on the municipal, state or national treasury. The Majority is standing guard at an empty exchequer across which falls not the slightest shadow of monetary aggression. Thus, it speaks without a page of the record to stand on, when it asserts that “the Academy House Project involves substantial public financing of a private endeavor.” Indeed, the 800-page record is all to the absolute contrary.
In finding of fact No. 6, the learned chancellor, on ample evidence before him, found, and that finding was confirmed by the court en banc: “As rent for the garage and the air space above it, National Land will pay the Parking Authority an amount that will include the principal and interest on the bonds issued by the Authority to finance the erection of the garage, and the term of National Land’s lease of garage and air space will be coordinated for the life of these bonds”. In finding of fact No. 6, also affirmed by the court en banc, the learned chancellor found that the lessee will pay for the entire cost of construction of the superstructure. Thus private parties will initially finance the construction of the garage by buying bonds issued by the Authority and National Land will pay *359in the form of rent, sums sufficient to pay both the principal and the interest on these bonds. How, then can the Majority speak of “public investment in the Project?” Let it here be stated unequivocally, conclusively, definitively and beyond cavil: National Land will pay for the entire cost of construction both of the garage and the superstructure above it.3
(4) The challenge that there was no demonstrable present or future public need for the parking facility proposed
In view of the record in this case, the Majority Opinion in this respect reads like a few pages from Alice in Blunderland. As the learned court below in its opinion sur exceptions correctly declared: “The record shows that the Parking Authority could reasonably conclude that there is both a present and future need for the project, and that the Authority has not abused its discretion or acted arbitrarily or contrary to law.”
In reaching its conclusions, the Authority took into consideration the following reasons, inter alia, for its finding that there was both a public and future need.
“3. That there is at the present time a shortage of parking spaces in the Broad and Spruce Street area (508a-509a, 511a-512a, 514a).
“4. That there is a present need for a public parking project at the site of the Academy House Project (508a-511a, 514a), which is a proper location (414a, 514a), and that the size of the proposed public parking garage is a correct one in relation to the need (514a).
“5. That the Academy House Project would have an impact on traffic (414a) which was examined, tak*360ing into account the work of the City’s traffic engineers, and the studies of Wilbur Smith and Associates as to where parking demand generated in this specific location (414a) ; and, in this regard, the Authority consulted traffic engineers and discussed traffic ingress and egress, number of spaces, street capacity, and related matters, and had them explore alternative ways in which the traffic flow could go (414a), and received a report from them that they were satisfied with the proposal (414a).
“5. That there has been a general increase in center City traffic, based on a number of improvements that have been going on there (512a).
“6. That there were a number of new facilities which were supposed to come into existence within the next ten year period (131a).
“7. That there will be increased parking needs regardless of the Academy House Project itself, and that whatever parking that would be generated by the apartment houses in the Academy House Project would be adequately served by the public parking garage underneath it, and that the size of the garage is designed to take into account both types of generation (512a).
“13. That there has been some discussion or talk of, but there is not under consideration, a proposed large public garage at Broad and Pine Streets in connection with the Museum College of Art (134a, 503a-504a). Its development is uncertain (134a).
“16. That there was to be a move of the Library Company from its present location at Broad and Christian Streets to the general area of the Academy House Project, and that there was discussion of one or another institutions coming into this area, as well (512a).
“17. That the size of the proposed garage and use of the air-rights thereabove, is consistent with parking demand (425a) and-the size of the land area (414a).
*361“23. That the type of building to be constructed in the air-rights above the public parking garage is proper in relation to land coverage and density (414a), and provides for the maximum use of the site (Exhibit D-25, 888a-896a).
“24. That the project’s size is proper, in light of the studies of Wilbur Smith and Associates, the parking demand, and the relation of the use of the air-rights over the parking structure (425a).”
In the face of these record facts, how can this Court seriously say there is no present or future need for additional parking at this site? Only by arbitrarily substituting its judgment for that of the Philadelphia Public Parking Authority can it do so.
The extent to which the Majority Opinion purports to substitute the judgment of this Court for that of the experts, is revealed by its total disregard and overturning of the chancellor’s findings of fact affirmed by the court en banc.
The Majority Opinion indeed purports to out-expert one of the internationally acknowledged experts on traffic and parking, Wilbur Smith and Associates. The Authority relies on traffic engineers’ views on traffic ingress and egress, number of spaces, street capacity, and many other matters intimately related to the present and future need for a parking garage here.
The Majority Opinion does not state on what technical knowledge or traffic experience it overrules technical experts on such technical aspects as “projection of space required”, “the contemplated generation of a significant demand” and the other myriad of matters which are basically and inherently within the province of experts employed by the Parking Authority and on whose reports the Parking Authority to that extent based its judgment to proceed with the project.
The Majority Opinion in this respect dramatically demonstrates the folly of this Court’s attempting to *362substitute its judgment on administrative matters, technical in nature and requiring years of intensive study, for that of the administrators empowered by law to perform such functions.
The plaintiffs have had more than their day in court in this case. They have had exhausting depositions taken before the trial of the case. They have had a trial in which every facet of the case was fully and thoroughly explored. The chancellor has made findings of fact which are totally uncontradicted and in every instance are supported by ample evidence in the record. The court en banc has affirmed these findings. The plaintiffs have argued and reargued these appeals. There should and must be a repose to this litigation.
When, as here, a fair reading of the entire record reveals that a competent, responsible body of public-spirited citizens has in good faith reasonably and upon the basis of an impressive record of exhaustive investigation of every facet of a complicated situation concluded to proceed with a great development promising so extensive an improvement as the Academy House Project we should commend and not condemn it.
As a matter, strictly of law, our judicial function is exhausted when we find no basis in law or fact to stop the project. There is no error in the lower court’s adjudication and opinion dismissing exceptions.
We must and should affirm.
Mr. Justice Eagen joins in this dissenting opinion.

 Potts v. Utica, 86 F. 2d 616 (2d Cir. 1936) ; Alexander v. Natchez, 219 Miss. 78, 68 So. 2d 434 (1953) ; O’Brien v. Niagara Falls, 65 Misc. 92, 119 N.Y.S. 497 (1909) ; Hordin v. Cleveland, 77 Ohio App. 491, 62 N.E. 2d 889 (1945) ; Worthington v. Boston, 152 U.S. 695, 38 L. ed. 603 (1894) ; et cetera, without number.

 Nine-Ten Chestnut Corp. v. Phila. Parking Authority, 373 Pa. 274; Lazrow v. Phila. Housing Authority, 375 Pa. 586; Spann v. *355Joint Boards of School Directors, 381 Pa. 338; Seligsohn v. Phila. Parking Authority, 412 Pa. 372.

 Of course, aU costs wiU be borne by tbe lessees. Naturally, tbis will include tbe purchase price of tbe John Bartram Hotel.