Court Opinion

ID: 9620494
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:42:58.845618+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:24.586049
License: Public Domain

STRUCKMEYER, Justice.
This is an action by the City of Scottsdale and the Fisher Contracting Co., a corporation, seeking to prohibit the Municipal Court of the City of Tempe from enforcing its zoning ordinance and building code against certain property on which Scottsdale is attempting to construct a sewage disposal plant.
Scottsdale has for some years past owned and operated a sewage plant on a plot of ground near the bed of the Salt River in Maricopa County, Arizona. In 1958, it purchased twenty (20) acres for a site to expand its existing plant. Thereafter, consulting engineers designed plans for and arrangements were made to finance construction. Petitioner, the Fisher Contracting Co., was the low bidder on the proposed works.
On March 10th, 1960, the City of Tempe annexed a one-half (Vi) section of land which annexation embraced within its exterior boundaries both the existing plant and the twenty (20) acres acquired for expansion and thereafter zoned the area Residence I. [highest residential use] A use permit was denied by Tempe on application of Scottsdale. Nevertheless, petitioners herein, believing that the Tempe ordinance was invalid insofar as it sought to restrict the use of Scottsdale’s property, commenced the construction of the proposed improvement with the result that petitioners were cited into the Municipal Court of Tempe for violating both Tempe’s zoning ordinance and building code.
Tempe does not contend that the operation of the proposed sewage facilities will be a nuisance. While the expense may be great and vigilance is required, a sewage disposal plant can be operated so that it need not be a nuisance. City of Phoenix v. Johnson, 51 Ariz. 115, 75 P.2d 30. Nor is it suggested that Scottsdale is acting arbitrarily or capriciously in expanding its disposal plant. To the contrary, it is alleged and not denied that the Scottsdale area has had a population boom causing the existing sewage plant to become inadequate and in excess of its capacity. It also appears that the site purchased by Scottsdale for the addition to its existing plant is on land near the Salt River. We take judicial notice that such land is generally considered to be of marginal value for residential purposes and that the fall of the land and hence the *396drainage is from the City of Scottsdale south to the bed of the Salt River.
It is first Tempe’s position that Scottsdale has not been delegated the authority or power by the Legislature to construct a sewage disposal plant and it is argued that statutes which might seem applicable do not grant the right. We do not think the pertinent statutes can be so circumscribed.
A.R.S. § 9-522 provides:
“A. In addition to its other powers, a municipality may:
“1. * * * within or without its corporate limits, construct, improve, reconstruct, extend, operate, maintain and acquire, by gift, purchase or the exercise of the right of eminent domain, a utility undertaking * * (Emphasis supplied)
The preceding § 9-521 defines utility undertaking to include sewage disposal plant.
 The title to Article III of Chapter 5, under which the quoted section is found reads: “Municipal Bonds For Financing Utilities” but we think this is of no particular significance and that it does not create a limitation on the constructing of sewage disposal plants from the proceeds of bond funds. Only when the body of an act is ambiguous will courts take into consideration the title. Garrison v. Luke, 52 Ariz. 50, 78 P.2d 1120. There is no ambiguity here. The power to acquire property by purchase or eminent domain for utility undertakings is absolutely and unconditionally prescribed by the express language used.
Scottsdale urges that it has the right by virtue of the power of eminent domain to locate its sewage disposal plant at the proposed site irrespective of Tempe’s zoning. Zoning finds its authority in the police powers, Hart v. Bayless Investment & Trading Co., 86 Ariz. 379, 346 P.2d 1101, while eminent domain is the right and power in a sovereign state to appropriate private property to uses for the public good. The right is “a necessary, constant and unextinguishable attribute,” of sovereignty. Constitutional provisions in regard to eminent domain do not create or grant the power, but are limitations thereon; therefore, when by Article II, Section 17 of the Constitution of Arizona it was proyidéd that private property may not be taken without just compensation, there was an implied recognition that private property may be taken with just compensation for public use. See Cienega Cattle Co. v. Atkins, 59 Ariz. 287, 126 P.2d 481.
A.R.S. § 9-522, supra, authorizes the acquisition of property both inside and outside corporate limits without qualification. The New York Court of Appeals in a case where property owners sought an injunction to prevent the erection of a building to house garbage trucks and repair equipment contrary to- zoning stated the underlying principle, “In the very nature of things* a municipality must have the power *397to select the site of buildings or other structures for the performance of its governmental duties.” Nehrbas v. Incorporated Village of Lloyd Harbor, 2 N.Y.2d 190, 159 N.Y.S.2d 145, 140 N.E.2d 241, 61 A.L.R.2d 965. Where the power of eminent domain exists, a political subdivision may locate its governmental functions within the territorial limits of another subdivision without regard to limitations created by zoning. State ex rel. Askew v. Kopp, 330 S.W.2d 882 (Mo.1960); State ex rel. Helsel v. Board of County Comm’rs., Ohio Com. Pl., 79 N.E.2d 698, aff’d. 83 Ohio App. 388, 78 N.E.2d 694, app. dismissed, 149 Ohio St. 583, 79 N.E.2d 911; Petition of City of Detroit, 308 Mich. 480, 14 N.W.2d 140; Aviation Services v. Board of Adjustment, 20 N.J. 275, 119 A.2d 761.
For example, the Missouri Supreme Court in State ex rel. Askew v. Kopp, supra, said:
“Local zoning ordinances are not applicable to public uses of property for which an agency of the government has the power to acquire lands by the exercise of the power of eminent domain. * * * the power of eminent domain is superior to property rights, the right to exercise the power being exclusively a legislative prerogative, ‘subject only to such limitations as are fixed by the constitution itself.’ ” 330 S.-W.2d 882, 888.
It is generally recognized that zoning restrictions do not apply to the state or any of its agencies vested with the right of eminent domain in the acquisition or use of land for public purposes. 8 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations, 43 § 25.15 (3rd ed. 1957); Annot, 61 A.L.R.2d 970 (1958).
Whether a political subdivision is subject to zoning has with some exceptions been made to depend upon the proprietary or governmental nature of the activity. Nehrbas v. Incorporated Village of Lloyd Harbor, supra; Wallerstein v. Westchester Joint Water Works, 166 Misc. 34, 1 N.Y.S. 2d 111; O’Brien v. Town of Greenburgh, 239 App.Div. 555, 268 N.Y.S. 173, aff’d., 266 N.Y. 582, 195 N.E. 210; Baltis v. Village of Westchester, 3 Ill.2d 388, 121 N.E.2d 495; Green County v. City of Monroe, 3 Wisc.2d 196, 87 N.W.2d 827; Taber v. City of Benton Harbor, 280 Mich. 522, 274 N.W. 324; Nichols Engineering & Research v. State, 59 So.2d 874 (Fla.1952); Mayor Etc. of Savannah v. Collins, 211 Ga. 191, 84 S.E.2d 454; McKinney v. City of High Point, 237 N.C. 66, 74 S.E.2d 440; and see 2 Metzenbaum, Law of Zoning, 1280 Chapter X-i, “When Zoning Ordinances Not Deemed to Affect Municipal Or Other Political Subdivision Buildings” (2nd ed. 1955).
This brings us to Tempe’s next contention that Scottsdale should be held subject to Tempe’s zoning regulations because *398the municipal activities here are proprietary and not governmental in character. Tempe urges upon this Court the decision in Jefferson County v. City of Birmingham, 256 Ala. 436, 55 So.2d 196, wherein the Alabama Supreme Court decided that the operation of a sewage disposal plant was a proprietary function. The question is not without a division of authority. See State ex rel. Askew v. Kopp, supra. However, we are persuaded to the view that the operation of a sewage disposal plant is a governmental function by what we consider to be the better reason.
Over thirty years ago this Court concluded that the collection and disposal of garbage constituted a governmental function. Jones v. City of Phoenix, 29 Ariz. 181, 239 P. 1030. At that time we approved the reasoning in Love v. City of Atlanta, 95 Ga. 129, 22 S.E. 29, 51 Am.St.Rep. 64 in holding that the preservation of the public health is one of the duties that devolves upon the state as a sovereignty; that in its discharge the state is acting strictly in the discharge of one of the functions of government; and that a municipal corporation likewise in the discharge of such a duty is in the exercise of a purely governmental function affecting the welfare not only of the citizens, residing within its corporate limits but of the citizens of the state generally, all of whom have an interest in the prevention and spread of infectious or contagious diseases. If the reasoning advanced in the Jones case was valid as to garbage disposal thirty-five years ago, it is even more apposite in the case of sewage today where through modern devices garbage as well as human excretion and waste are disposed of into sewer lines. Rising population trends compel civilized men to live in the closest proximity. Adequate sewage disposal is not merely desirable, it is a stark necessity. Even in other areas such as the field of tort liability in which the courts have been most reluctant to expand governmental immunity, the weight of recent authority seems to favor the theory of a governmental function e. g., 63 C.J.S. Municipal Corporations § 873, p. 253.
Tempe argues without citation of authority that even if Scottsdale could have acquired the land by eminent domain free of zoning restrictions for a sewage plant, it did not, but rather acquired title by purchase, and therefore, Scottsdale’s right to erect the plant in violation of the zoning ordinance was lost. The same argument was considered in State ex rel. Askew v. Kopp, supra, and found to be without merit. By it a distinction is sought to be drawn without the basis of a valid difference. Were we to decide that zoning ordinances are superior when property is purchased but not when acquired by eminent domain, nothing could prevent Scottsdale from condemning a site immediately adjacent to the present parcel and lawfully re-locating its sewage plant there. The state and its *399public agencies should not be required to acquire property by eminent domain which otherwise would be purchased merely to avoid restrictive zoning.
The foregoing disposes of the principal questions. We note that the Fisher Contracting Co. is charged in the Municipal Court of Tempe with violating Tempe’s building regulations in failing to obtain a construction permit. This Court repeatedly stressed in Board of Regents of Universities, Etc. v. City of Tempe, 88 Ariz. 299, 356 P.2d 399, that a state agency delegated by law with the responsibility of performing a governmental function was not subj ect to the police powers of the city exerted through its building code.
Tempe also argues that prohibition is not a proper remedy because the proceedings could and hence should be initiated in the superior court. A remedy is not plain, speedy and adequate where the issues relate to the public’s health and safety and the ultimate decision may be postponed two or more years.
For the foregoing reasons the alternative writ of prohibition is made permanent.
BERNSTEIN, C. J., and UDALL, V. C. J., concur.