Court Opinion

ID: 9703391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:54:13.849271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:48.369738
License: Public Domain

LARSEN, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The majority opinion is predicated upon the proposition that reading the Municipalities Code in pari materia with the Eminent Domain Code shows that the Legislature intended to prohibit appellant’s suit under the latter Code. This approach virtually guarantees that the crucial question presented in this, and similar cases, will be ignored. This question is whether there was a de facto taking of appellant’s property through the device of imposing conditions precedent to subdivision approval. This case should be remanded to the lower court for a determination of this paramount question in light of the facts peculiar to it. If I had sufficient votes for a majority opinion, it would read as follows:
On May 9, 1974, appellant, Reihart, Inc., submitted a sketch plan to the Carroll Township Planning Commission for subdivision approval of four one-acre lots within a 420-acre tract of land. Each lot fronted Ore Bank Road, an existing township road approximately 17 feet wide. The Commission required appellant to subdivide the remaining property within the original tract.
Subsequently, appellant sold about one-half of the original tract and he then submitted a revised plan for a 177-acre *468tract of land which showed the same four one-acre lots as well as ten other lots each containing ten acres or more, plus the residue of land not subdivided. On August 8, 1974, the Commission conditionally approved this revised plan. Thirteen conditions, however, were imposed upon appellant before final approval would be granted. One of these conditions required appellant to dedicate portions of the 177-acre tract to the Township for rights-of-way along Ore Bank Road. The purpose of this required condition of dedication was to increase the width of the road from its present 17 feet to a projected 50 feet if this were necessary in the future. It was made clear to appellant that unless these rights-of-way were so dedicated, the Planning Commission would not approve the subdivision plan.
After appellant dedicated the land to the Township as required by the imposed condition, the Planning Commission and then the Carroll Township Board of Supervisors gave final approval of the subdivision in early 1976.
Immediately following final approval, appellant filed a petition for the appointment of viewers pursuant to the Eminent Domain Code, Act of June 22, 1964, Special Sess., P.L. 84, Art. V, § 502(e), 26 P.S. § 1-502(6),1 alleging that the Township, without filing a declaration of taking, had effectuated a taking of its property by imposing the condition of dedication which appellant would have to satisfy in order to obtain subdivision approval. Therefore, appellant sought just compensation for this taking.
The Township filed a motion for summary judgment which was subsequently granted. The court stated that “the issue has been before the Court of other jurisdictions and . . . the argument here advanced by [appellant] has been consistently rejected. . . . We conclude that *469an eminent domain proceeding is not available to [appellant] who has executed a grant as a condition of subdivision approval.”
Appellant then appealed this judgment to the Commonwealth Court which affirmed it per curiam. We granted allocatur on December 10, 1978.
The Township acted pursuant to the Carroll Township Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance of 1970, Section 601.3 which provides:
Where an existing street traverses or abuts the subdivision, the entire right-of-way required by these regulations, or as much as possible within the subdivision, must be provided.
It justified this ordinance by relying upon Section 503 of the Municipalities Planning Code, 53 P.S. § 10503(2)(ii) which allows that a subdivision and land development ordinance may include:
(2) Provisions for insuring that . . . (ii) streets in and bordering a subdivision or land development shall be coordinated, and be of such widths and grades and in such locations as deemed necessary to accommodate prospective traffic, and facilitate fire protection.
The Township denies, therefore, that there was a de facto taking of property which would require compensation as the appellant charges.
Succinctly put, the Township views its action as a legitimate exercise of its police power rather than as an exercise of its power of eminent domain.
Drawing a distinction between these two powers — the police and eminent domain — has long been familiar in this jurisdiction. Philadelphia v. Scott, 81 Pa. 80, 85-86 (1876). On the one hand, the police power is, among other characteristics, a power to regulate property for the health, safety and general welfare and requires no compensation to the party regulated. White’s Appeal, 287 Pa. 259, 264, 134 A. *470409 (1926). On the other hand, eminent domain is a power to take property for the public use and for which compensation is necessary. White’s Appeal, supra. While the distinction between the police power and power of eminent domain is one of long-standing ancestry, nonetheless the problem of testing the limits of a condition imposing a required dedication constitutes a matter of first impression for this Court. Accordingly, a test is required for ascertaining whether the condition imposed has its locus in the police power or whether it derives from the power of eminent domain instead.2
Appellant suggests that such a test has been articulated in McKain v. Toledo City Plan Commission, 26 Ohio App.2d 171, 270 N.E.2d 370 (1971); he urges this Court to adopt it as a useful means for testing the limits of a given dedication requirement imposed by a municipality upon a subdivider. In McKain, plaintiffs were seeking to subdivide three lots totaling .59 acres. Subdivision approval was conditioned upon plaintiffs’ dedication of a thirty-foot wide strip along a dual highway which abutted 3.71 acres of plaintiffs’ land. The strip was to make possible a widening of the highway from its present forty-foot width to a finished width of seventy feet. Just as in the instant case, so too in McKain, the court sought a way to test the limits of a condition which imposed a required dedication. That court stated:
A municipality may require in subdivision regulations that a developer provide streets that are necessitated by the activity within the subdivision and such developer may be required to assume any costs which are specifically and uniquely attributed to his activities which would otherwise be cast upon the public, but this does not authorize a municipality to require a developer to dedicate a strip of land to the municipality without payment in order to *471widen a main thoroughfare 700 feet distant from and totally unrelated to the proposed subdivision. (Citations omitted). If the subdivision requirement is within the statutory grant of power to the municipality and if the burden cast upon the subdivider is specifically and uniquely attributable to his activity, then, the requirement is permissible; if not, it is forbidden and amounts to a confiscation of private property in contravention of constitutional prohibitions, rather than a reasonable regulation under the police power. (Citations omitted). Id. at 176-77, 270 N.E.2d at 374.
Applying this “specifically and uniquely attributable test” will reveal whether an imposed condition seeks to accommodate needs created only by the subdivision itself or instead satisfies needs of the general public.
While other jurisdictions confronted by this issue have formulated similar tests,3 the “specifically and uniquely attributable test” offers the fullest and most empirically satisfying test for striking a balance between the interests of the larger community and the rights of property owners upon whom is cast an appropriate burden when the activity of subdivision has generated the need. Such a test, I think, will place a reasonable restriction upon the discretion of planning boards in what has been a very ambiguous area of decision making. Also, this test will facilitate planning both by landowners and developers as well. And finally, the specifically and uniquely attributable test will assist courts in assessing the validity of conditions which are imposed as conditions precedent to subdivision approval.
In the instant case, appellant was required to dedicate rights-of-way along the entire 177-acre tract of land which abutted Ore Bank Road. Appellant’s proposed subdivision *472plan showed only four one-acre lots to be used as single family residential dwellings. The remainder of the tract, which the Township required appellant to subdivide also, was divided into ten ten-acre lots to be used for agricultural purposes and residue land. Guided by the test articulated above, the lower court must determine whether the burden imposed upon appellant is specifically and uniquely attributable to the activity of the subdivision. If it is, then appellant should receive no compensation since the imposed condition is a proper exercise of the police power. If it is not, then appellant is entitled to just compensation for a taking which has deprived him of the beneficial use and enjoyment of his property.
The Township contended and the lower court agreed that there could be no taking in that appellant voluntarily dedicated the land in order to obtain final approval for his subdivision plan.4 This contention is without merit. One cannot be required to give up property when the giving up bears no relationship to the police power and thus is tantamount to the compelled surrender of one’s legal right to compensation in return for subdivision approval.
Since a material issue was presented to the lower court, i. e., police power vs. eminent domain, the entry of a summary judgment was improper. Therefore, I would reverse the judgment and remand this case to the Court of Common Pleas for a determination of the issues consistent with the above.

. 26 P.S. § l-502(e) provides:
(e) If there has been a compensable injury suffered and no declaration of taking therefor has been filed, a condemnee may file a petition for the appointment of viewers substantially in the form provided for in subsection (a) of this section, setting forth such injury.

. For example, in Ayres v. City Council of City of Los Angeles, 34 Cal.2d 31, 207 P.2d 1 (1949), it was suggested that the municipality may require the developer to provide streets which are required by the activity within the subdivision, but it cannot require him to provide a main thoroughfare, the need for which stems from the activity of the total community at large.

. See Wald Corp. v. Metropolitan Dade County, Fla.App., 338 So.2d 863 (1976) (rational nexus standard); Noland v. St. Louis County, 478 S.W.2d 363 (1972) (reasonably related standard); Pioneer Trust and Savings Bank v. Village of Mt. Prospect, 22 Ill.2d 375, 176 N.E.2d 799 (1961) (specifically and uniquely attributable); Ayres v. City Council of Los Angeles, supra.

. There are three cases in Pennsylvania concerning compulsory dedication; all of them are contrary to the trial court’s reasoning and ruling in the instant case. Boron Oil Co. v. Zoning Bd. of Adj. of Hickory Township, 52 Pa.D.&C.2d 267 (C.P. Mercer Co., 1971) (ordinance requirement conditioning building permit upon developer’s dedication of parallel access road held unconstitutional under Pennsylvania and U.S. Constitutions); Lukens v. Upper Moreland Twp., 82 Pa.D.&C. 308 (Q.S. Montgomery Co., 1952) (held that Twp. could not constitutionally acquire sewer easement by making dedication of that easement a condition to approval of subdivision plan); In re Lower Moreland Twp. Ordinance, 81 Pa.D.&C. 387 (Q.S. Montgomery Co., 1951) (dictum suggesting that compulsory dedication is a compensable “taking”).