Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority of City of St. Louis v. City of St. Louis

• Citation: 270 S.W.2d 58
• Decision Date: 20 July 1954
• Docket Number: No. 44430,44430
• Parties: LAND CLEARANCE FOR REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY OF CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS et al.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 58

270 S.W.2d 58

LAND CLEARANCE FOR REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY OF CITY OF ST. LOUIS v. CITY OF ST. LOUIS et al.

No. 44430.

Supreme Court of Missouri, En Banc.

July 20, 1954.

Jacob M. Lashly, M. P. Phillips, St. Louis, for plaintiff-appellant.

Samuel H. Liberman, City Counselor, William J. Murray, Associate City Counselor, St. Louis, for City of St. Louis.

Richard A. Hetlage, St. Louis, for intervenor Urban Redevelopment Corp. of St. Louis.

Rexford H. Caruthers, St. Louis, for appellant Mesco Realty Co., Inc.

HOLLINGSWORTH, Judge.

This is an action by the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority of the City of St. Louis against defendant City of St. Louis. It is brought under the Declaratory Judgments Act. The prayer is that the court enter a declaratory judgment construing the provisions of a Cooperation Agreement between the plaintiff Land Clearance Authority and the defendant City, dated March 24, 1954, and determine its validity as well as the legality of the plans, resolutions, ordinances and statutes upon which the Cooperation Agreement depends, and to direct and adjudge that the plaintiff and defendant shall proceed with the plans and purposes pleaded and shown in evidence, to the end that Project Area 'A' in the City of St. Louis may be taken over, cleared of slums and placed in the course of redevelopment by a qualified redeveloper. The answer of the City of St. Louis admits the allegations of the petition and invites the court to determine the legality and validity as well as the scope and extent of the statutes, ordinances, resolutions and agreements set forth and referred to in plaintiff's petition, joining in the prayer for a declaratory judgment. Upon the day set for hearing, the Mesco Realty Co., Inc., and Urban Redevelopment Corporation of St. Louis separately intervened by leave of court and filed answers. Mesco is a private corporation and taxpayer, owning a parcel of real estate within Project Area 'A'. By their answers intervenors tender the issue of validity of the Cooperation agreement and the statutes and ordinances involved in the proceedings by challenging the legality thereof. After hearing the evidence, the court rendered a decree sustaining the prayer for declaratory judgment and disposing of the issues favorably to the petition and claims of the plaintiff, but in some respects asserted by plaintiff and defendant to be insufficient, inadequate and incomplete. After separate motions for new trial by plaintiff, defendant and intervenor Mesco Realty Co., Inc., which were overruled, said three parties have prosecuted this appeal. The intervenor Urban Redevelopment Corporation of St. Louis did not appeal.

In its motion for new trial and in this court plaintiff contends that the decree rendered by the trial court fails (1) to remove the uncertainty and doubt of the rights and privileges of plaintiff and defendant claimed in the pleadings and under the evidence and (2) to determine the powers of plaintiff and defendant to pass the ordinances, adopt the resolutions, make the findings and enter into the contracts and Cooperation Agreement and do the other things contemplated and necessary to lawfully effectuate the plan and project by plaintiff and defendant undertaken as reflected in this proceeding. Defendant, both in its motion for new trial and on this appeal, complains of inaccuracy of the decree and here seeks a more complete and detailed adjudication of its right to enter into the Cooperation Agreement and all of its obligations assumed thereunder. Intervenor Mesco Realty Co., Inc., challenges the constitutionality of certain sections of the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority Law.

The object and purpose of the proceeding is the rehabilitation of an insanitary area between 18th and Market Streets on the south and west and 14th and Olive Streets on the east and north, in the City of St. Louis. Between Memorial Plaza and Union Station, there is an area on the fringe of the congested district of the City which was declared insanitary, as defined in Section 99.320(10) Cum.Sup. RSMo 1953, V.A.M.S., first by action of the board of aldermen, and again by the court. The evidence showed the predominance of buildings which, by reason of dilapidation, deterioration, age and obsolescence and through many deficiencies of ventilation, light, air, sanitation and breathing spaces, high density of population in the residential portions, and the existence of conditions dangerous to life and safety as well as conducive to ill health, transmission of disease, infant mortality, juvenile delinquency and crime, on the whole make the area detrimental to the public health, safety, morals and welfare.

Due to extreme housing shortages and other reasons during the second World War, there has been an intensification of demand throughout the country for legal means to deal with conditions such as this. Through appropriate exercise of state police power, a slum premise could be extinguished in the interest of public health, safety or welfare. But it was thought by some courts that police power could be made effective only to the point of demolition of the blighted spot and removal of that particular cause of public danger. The Constitutional Convention of Missouri of 1945 undertook to supply any hiatus in legislative authority to provide for the redevelopment of slum areas by the adoption of a special provision relating thereto. Article VI, Sec. 21, of the new Constitution, V.A.M.S., authorized the Legislature and constitutional charter cities to provide for land clearance in proper cases, and for the taking of fee simple titles to property involved in the taking operations, so that it might be sold with such restrictions upon the future land use as would prevent its relapse into the former condition of blight. And, as an inducement to purchasers and redevelopers, Article X on taxation, Sec. 7, of the Constitution of 1945, was written to enable the General Assembly to provide tax concessions calculated to encourage programs of rehabilitation. In 1951 the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Law, Sections 99.300 to 99.660, 1953 Cum.Supp. RSMo, V.A.M.S., was passed, which translated into working machinery the rights, powers and privileges authorized in Article VI, Sec. 21, of the Constitution of 1945. The City of St. Louis, acting under this authority, created a Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority for that City by Ordinance No. 45977, approved on February 18, 1952. A legislative finding was there made by the Board of Aldermen to the effect that blighted and insanitary areas existed in the City of St. Louis and that redevelopment of such areas was necessary, and thereupon approved the exercise by the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority of the City of St. Louis of the powers, functions and duties authorized under the foregoing statutes.

The evidence shows in detail the steps taken, from the adoption of an over-all city plan by the City Plan Commission to the preparation and drafting of a specific plan for project Area 'A' here involved. The plan was adopted by the Land Clearance Authority, its action in this regard being evidenced by its resolutions 11 and 13, and was transmitted to the Board of Aldermen with recommendations for its approval. The plan was approved by regular action of the Board of Aldermen of the City of St. Louis, expressed in Ordinance No. 46497. A Cooperation Agreement to aid in the consummation of the plan of redevelopment for Project Area 'A' was entered into between the Land Clearance Authority and the City, providing reciprocal rights and duties of the two contracting parties, and this contract likewise was authorized and approved by the Board of Aldermen of the City. The plan projects and the provisions of the Cooperation Agreement support the acquisition of the entire property in the project area, with the exception of three specific parcels, that is to say, two churches and a relatively new apartment building erected after the plan for redevelopment of the area was made public, which three parcels are not disturbed by these proceedings.

It is proposed that after the plaintiff shall acquire the property, one section of it running along the north side of Market Street from 15th to 18th Streets shall be sold to the City of St. Louis for a park which would connect the Aloe Plaza, lying directly in front of Union Station, with Memorial Plaza, lying in front of the City Hall, Municipal Courts and Kiel Memorial Auditorium. A bond issue proposition submitted to the voters on the 29th day of September, 1953, in the sum of $1,500,000, was carried at the election, and these funds are to be made available for the purchase of the park site. The evidence shows that the Home and Housing Finance Agency of the Federal Government is agreeable to accept the use value of this park as an adjunct to the proposed redevelopment project as a credit upon the City's assumption of one-third of the net cost of the project when made ready for redevelopment.

There is no dispute that the evidence supports the claim that Area 'A' is an insanitary area within the meaning of the statute and the city ordinance involved.

It is proposed that the plaintiff will acquire the property in the site by gift, purchase or by condemnation proceedings in the exercise of eminent domain, clear the same for rehabilitation and sell it to an urban redeveloper who may qualify under the Urban Redevelopment Corporations Law, Chapter 353, RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S., or any other qualified person who may enter into a redevelopment relationship with the plaintiff. It is expected that the cost of acquisition and clearance of the property will exceed its sale value for redevelopment purposes. This differential, representing the net cost of the project, is to be financed by the Federal Government under the Housing Act of 1949 up to two-thirds of the loss. 42 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1454; Section 353.160 RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S. The...