Court Opinion

ID: 9638477
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:44:37.022683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:06.676761
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Mr. Justice Roberts:
I concur in the majority’s decision sustaining the constitutionality of the legislation and projects here under review; but I should add a few observations regarding one aspect of the case.
As I read the majority opinion, we do not by this decision venture any judgment as to the wisdom or desirability of the use of tax free revenue bonds to foster industrial development; that is a determination entrusted exclusively to the legislature. Ours has been the more limited inquiry of whether the legislative judgment to proceed in this fashion exceeds the boundaries of the constitutionally permissible.
Our conclusion that the legislation and projects serves a “public purpose” in part reflects an evolution in attitude prompted by the changing nature of our public needs. It also reflects the deference courts must accord to the legislative branch where fundamentally at issue is the appropriate role of government in meeting those needs. In this area, there may be no pretense that we sit as a superlegislature.
Once it is accepted that the reduction of unemployment and the reversal of economic decline are a legitimate concern of government, our sole inquiry is whether the particular approach selected — the fostering of new plant development — is reasonably calculated to realize that objective.
In the instant case, appellants argue that the legislation and projects serve no useful public purpose, but are designed primarily to facilitate private interests. This contention, however, in the context of this case, *66misapprehends the public purpose doctrine and the extent to which courts may interpose themselves in the resolution of essentially legislative questions. That doctrine was not intended to preclude legislative innovation reasonably calculated to realize police power objectives.
Appellants have relied heavily on Price v. Philadelphia Parking Authority, 422 Pa. 317, 221 A. 2d 138 (1966). As the majority correctly points out, that case is narrowly speaking inapposite because it was decided not on constitutional grounds, but on the basis that the specific projects under attack were not authorized by the enabling legislation. Yet in a broad sense, we deal here with the same basic problem. If the instant projects were determined not to be essentially “public,” in that the benefit accruing to the local communities were found not sufficient to justify the public involvement, then our conclusion must necessarily be in accord with that reached in Price.
In Price, the public authority’s mandated role was to provide public parking. Yet the only benefit to the public after an investment by the parking authority of $8,000,000 to $9,000,000 was the addition of 180 parking spaces over that generally available prior to the project. Id. at 321, 338. Two-thirds of the parking spaces created were to be utilized primarily by the private commercial tenants of the structure housing the facility. The public thus was unable to benefit from the greater part of the project. But while there was a minimal gain to the public, there was numerous and significant benefits to the private developer.
In the instant case, although the immediate beneficiary is intended to be the industrial lessee, it acts solely as a conduit by which the public may realize the ultimate benefit of local economic growth. Here, *67unlike Price, the totality of the projects will be devoted to their stated purpose — the reduction of unemployment through the creation of new plant development. While private interests are necessarily aided, the purpose of this aid is to foster a vital public interest. Thus, within the confines of this specific program and its objectives — far more subtle than the direct provision of a public service such as public parking — industrial lessees are functionally only incidental beneficiaries, necessary to the realization of an essentially public objective.
Fundamentally, the instant programs involve no more than the creation of an atmosphere conducive to industrial and economic growth by providing the mechanism for the realization of permissible tax benefits. No public property is devoted, nor credit lent to the industrial lessee. Nor are there any local advantages exempting the private users from taxation (in light of the agreements for payments in lieu of taxes) or regulation. On this basis, we would be loath to deprive local communities within this Commonwealth of the opportunity to compete with the numerous other jurisdictions (many of which adjoin Pennsylvania) making available similar inducements for economic expansion and growth.
Today’s decision will not preclude the courts from preventing an abuse of an authority’s discretion in participating in a specific project. What would constitute such abuse within the confines of this program need not be here specified. It suffices for present purposes, however, to state that in the instant cases no such abuse has been suggested or called to our attention. For these reasons, I concur in the result reached by the majority.