Court Opinion

ID: 9569762
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:17:09.252079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:03:56.459728
License: Public Domain

CROCKETT, Justice
(concurring specially) .
The desirability of seeing a way to approve this plan to salvage and renovate the inner city is to be conceded. Nevertheless, it is our obligation to make an objective analysis of the application of the law to this proposal, for which purpose I make these observations:
The proposition which must be forthrightly faced is this: the proposed bonds should be regarded as either one classification or the other: they are either A, “revenue bonds,” i. e., which are to be paid, interest and amortization of the principal, by the revenues derived from the project; or, B, they are not revenue bonds, but are to be financed by the revenues, and also by taxes to be imposed and collected by the city.
If these bonds were clearly under classification A> there would be no problem and no need of this lawsuit. But if they fall under classification B, then these questions are confronted: whether this plan is a lending of the city’s credit for a private purpose, forbidden by Art. VI, Sec. 29, Utah Constitution, whether the bonds constitute a debt against the city, and are thus governed by the laws applicable thereto, including Sections 3 and 4, Article XIV, Utah Constitution, and whether there need be a bond election.
The recital that the bonds are not obligations of the community (the city) is not controlling. Neither is the fact that the bond resolution, the bond form and the approving city ordinance so recite. It is necessary to look beyond those recitals to the actual arrangement to determine the character of the bond issue. The main opinion correctly states that “The bond holders can look only to the revenues from the operation of the facility and the allocated taxes
There is somewhat of a paradox in this situation, because this plan appears to have been devised for the purpose of having the bonds fall within classification A above, so they can be treated as revenue bonds, and not as general obligations of the city;1 and at the same time have the payment of the bonds assured, at least in part, by taxes levied and collected by the city. The fact cannot be ignored that this support from taxes is intended to make the bonds more salable and at a lower interest rate.
Plaintiffs argue, and not without plausibility, that because theirs and other property in the city is subject to any increased taxation in future years, and that, unless the project area property is similarly taxed and bears its proportionate share of any such increases, plaintiff’s property will be bearing a disproportionate share of the city’s financial burdens, and thus deprived of equal treatment under the law. Whereas, defendants point out that the property in the project area had been declining in assessed value for a number of years; and that this project has the potential for resulting in improvements in the area which will enhance the assessed valuation estimated at variously from 32 million to 49 million dollars; so that if the project property pays taxes on the basis of the base year, 1970, it will be bearing its fair share of city taxes, and providing the potential for a much greater amount as time goes on.
It seems obvious that if it is the amount of taxes in dollars paid on the project property in the base year, 1970, which is pegged down, then as the taxes on other property increase in subsequent years (and experience teaches that there will be such increase) there will be unjust discrimination against and unequal treatment of the *506plaintiffs, who will be bearing a disproportionate share of the city’s tax burden. But in looking at the overall picture, any such inequity may be minimized or perhaps eliminated if it is the taxation on the assessed valuation of the property in the project area, which is pegged down as of 1970, and if the total fair assessed evaluation is subject to taxation, including any increased mill rate of taxes levied in subsequent years, and it is only the extra taxes generated from the amount of increased valuation over the base year, 1970, that is diverted into a special fund and used to pay on the bonds.
If, and when, the assessment roll in succeeding years shows amounts in excess of the base year limit, then such amounts as exceed that limit are to be directly diverted toward the retirement of the Agency bonds, and this tax allocation together with the anticipated revenues from the operation of the parking facility will constitute the sole revenues obligated to retire the bonds.
It seems to me of importance that in order to meet the problems raised by the plaintiffs, and for the act to be valid, it must be interpreted as advocated herein, based on these propositions: that for the purpose of carrying out this project it is the assessed valuation of the project area property which is pegged down as of the base year, 1970, and not the amount of dollars paid in taxes that year-, that the mill, rate levy, whatever it may be in future years, will apply to the actual assessed valuation of the project property each year, the same as to all other property in the city; that on the 1970 assessed valuation the current mill rate levy for each year will be paid into the city’s general tax funds (the taxing entities) ; and it is only the taxes (imposed at the same prevailing mill rate) which result from increased valuation in the project area, that will go to finance the bonds.2
By this payment of taxes into the city’s general tax fund, on the 1970 valuation of property in the project area, but based on the prevailing mill rate for all other property in the city, that area will be paying the same proportion of city taxes as it would have paid if the project had not been initiated and no improvement had taken place. This would seem to eliminate any inequity or discrimination against the plaintiffs and other tax payers; and to serve the desirable objective of reversing the trend of decreasing values and moving toward the enhancement of property values with concomitant increase in tax sources to help bear the burdens of the city and inci-dently of the plaintiffs and other tax payers similarly situated.
The other major aspect of plaintiffs’ attack on this act and the creation of the Neighborhood Redevelopment Agency is that it violates Sec. 28 of Art. VI of our Utah Constitution which prohibits delegation to any special commission the power to perform or interfere with municipal functions. Defendant’s rejoinder is that the act does not create any such entity. It authorizes the city itself, through its Board of Commissioners, to form such an agency; and that the control of the agency is in the City Commission, and the people control the Commission through the election process, so there is no actual delegation of the powers of the city to this agency.3 This is another seeming paradox through which the defendants must tread their way with caution. After the above assertion that the control is in fact ½ the City Commission, they say in the next *507breath that the Agency is not in fact the city, blit a separate quasi-municipal corporation, and therefore not subject to the constitutional and statutory regulations and restrictions imposed upon cities.
The significant points to note here are that this plan does not provide for nor contemplate that the City can or will impose any tax, or increase any mill levy, to support this Agency or its purposes, or to finance these bonds. Further, the Agency itself has no power to impose or collect any taxes, but its only benefit therefrom will be from the special fund set aside from the increased taxes generated by the enhancement of assessed valuation of property in the project area. The act does not empower the Agency to in any way perform any function of the City or interfere with its affairs.
In accordance with the ideas herein expressed in supplementation of the main opinion, I concur in affirmance of the trial court’s judgment refusing to declare the act unconstitutional.

. See Lehi City v. Meiling, 87 Utah 237, 48 P.2d 530; Allen v. Tooele County, 21 Utah 2d 383, 445 P.2d 994 and authorities therein cited.

. This financing method is sometime called the “tax increment” doctrine. But I think it should be more correctly called the “valuation increment” doctrine, indicating that it is the increase in value, taxed at whatever the current tax rate is in succeeding years, which provides the special fund to finance the bonds.

. See Belovshy v. Redevelopment Authority, 357 Pa. 329, 54 A.2d 277; City of Aurora v. Aurora Sanitation District, 112 Colo. 406, 149 P.2d 662; City of Whittier v. Dickson, 24 Cal.2d 664, 151 P.2d 5.