Court Opinion

ID: 9854920
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:16:58.35938+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:23:36.394451
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice McWilliams
dissenting:
I must dissent, as I remain completely unmoved by plaintiffs’ plea that the present restrictions on the use of their property situate on the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue and Washington Street are, as characterized by the majority opinion, “unconstitutional, confiscatory and void.” It is to be noted that the majority opinion in nowise points out just which provisions of what constitution negate the present restrictions on this particular property. Rather, these restrictions in my opinion are in a real sense of the plaintiffs own making, and accordingly I view this entire matter as merely a bootstrap operation of a rather obvious type, and one that should certainly not find sanction in the law.
Furthermore, I regard the majority opinion as striking at the very heart of the Zone Lot concept. In this regard an ordinance of the City and County of Denver provides as follows:
, “Zone Lot for Structures. A separate ground area, herein called the Zone. Lot, shall be designated, provided and continuously maintained for each structure containing a Use by Right. Each Zone Lot shall have at least one front line and shall be occupied only by the structure containing a Use by Right and a subordinate struc*447ture or structures containing only Assessory Uses. * * * *” (Emphasis supplied.)
Without going into unnecessary detail, the size of a building which may lawfully be constructed on a given Zone Lot is related to, and depends upon, the total surface area of the particular Zone Lot. In other words, the larger the Zone Lot the larger the apartment house, for example, which can be built thereon.
It was in this setting that in 1959 the owners of the eight lots on the southeast corner of Eighth Avenue and Washington Street, who at that time also owned the five lots on the southwest corner of the same intersection, asked the Board of Adjustment to group these thirteen lots into one Zone Lot. The Board acceded to their request and because the five lots on the southwest corner were included in the Zone Lot, a much bigger apartment house was constructed than could have otherwise been possible.
In my view of the matter, it is of the utmost importance to note that this is not an instance where the Board in any manner “took” property by involuntarily imposing restrictions on the property situated on the southwest corner of this intersection. Rather, this is an instance where the owners of these lots of their own volition sought to have their lots included in the aforementioned Zone Lot knowing full well that this ground area would have to be thereafter “continuously maintained” for the structure which was to be built thereon. They got, then, what they asked for, but now that the “bigger” Lido has been constructed, they seek to get out of the Zone Lot in question. And there is no suggestion that the plaintiffs in this action are in any different or better position than their predecessors in title, namely, those persons who owned the land in 1959. Plaintiff purchased this land with both the actual and constructive knowledge that these lots were a part of the Zone Lot upon which the Lido had been constructed, and knowing further that the applicable ordinance pro*448vided that a Zone Lot should thereafter be “continuously maintained” for each structure thereon. In plainer language, plaintiffs knew they were simply buying a law suit, in the sense that they knew the five lots in question were a part of the Zone Lot on which the Lido had been constructed and that these five lots would be of little value unless they could somehow get these five lots removed from this particular Zone Lot.
This, then, is but an instance where the owners of the lots on the southwest corner of Eighth Avenue and Washington Street are being permitted by us to defy the ancient adage that one may not have his cake and eat it too. By that I mean this: in 1959 the owners of these particular lots asked to be included in the Zone Lot upon which the Lido was to be built; this request was granted and a “bigger” Lido was built thereon than could otherwise have been constructed; now that the Lido is built, new owners of these same lots blandly ask to be taken out of this particular Zone Lot; and by the majority opinion this request is now to be granted. This I cannot accede to, and therefore I must dissent.
In the majority opinion is the strong suggestion that because the property in question is run down and no doubt is overrun with weeds and tin cans, it should therefore be released from the Zone Lot upon which the Lido is now standing. There is no citation of authority for the proposition that because one allows his property to get into a run down condition, he thereby frees it from valid zoning restrictions. This, of course, would really be a bootstrap operation.
Finally, I recognize that the plaintiffs do urge many matters which are indeed debatable, but such do not form the basis for the majority opinion. What I do dissent from is the bald holding that the restrictions on the plaintiffs’ property are simply unconstitutional, confiscatory and void. Just how and why such are unconstitutional, confiscatory and void has not been spelled out to my satisfaction, at least. Flow the owners of the *449subject property can now successfully complain about that which their predecessors in title voluntarily sought, and got, defeats me.