Asian Americans for Equality v. Koch

• Decision Date: 05 May 1987
• Citation: 128 A.D.2d 99,514 N.Y.S.2d 939
• Parties: ASIAN AMERICANS FOR EQUALITY, Tai Lui Chow, Bo Lan Tom, Karen Chan, Pui Ying Wond, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs- Respondents, v. Edward KOCH, as Mayor of the City of New York and Chairman of the Board of Estimate; Board of Estimate of the City of New York; Herbert Sturz, as Chairman of the City Planning Commission and Director of City Planning; City Planning Commission of the City of New York; Mary E. Mann, as President of the Tax Commission; Tax Commission of the City of New York; and Henry Street Partners, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 939

514 N.Y.S.2d 939

128 A.D.2d 99

ASIAN AMERICANS FOR EQUALITY, Tai Lui Chow, Bo Lan Tom Karen Chan, Pui Ying Wond, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated Plaintiffs- Respondents, v. Edward KOCH, as Mayor of the City of New York and Chairman of the Board of Estimate; Board of Estimate of the City of New York; Herbert Sturz, as Chairman of the City Planning Commission and Director of City Planning; City Planning Commission of the City of New York; Mary E. Mann, as President of the Tax Commission; Tax Commission of the City of New York; and Henry Street Partners, Defendants-Appellants.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division First Department.

May 5, 1987.

Stephen Dobkin, of counsel (Frank Barbaro, Richard Sussman and Ann Detiere with him on the brief; Earle R. Tockman and Geoffrey D.H. Smith, attorneys), for plaintiffs-respondents Asian Americans for Equality.

Edward F.X. Hart, of counsel (Larry A. Sonnenshein with him on the brief; Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr., attorney), for the Municipal defendants-appellants.

Ronald J. Offenkrantz, of counsel (Spitzer & Feldman, P.C. attorneys), for defendant-appellant Henry Street Partners.

Henry A. Hill, Jr., of counsel (Thomas Jay Hall with him on the brief; Brener, Wallack & Hill, attorneys), for American Planning Ass'n, as amicus curiae.

Leslie Salzman and Andrew Scherer, of counsel (Renee Steinhagen, Roger Wareham, Diane Yee, Kathy Hecht and Roland Lewis with them on the brief; New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and Community Action for Legal Services, attorneys), for Ansonia Tenants Coalition, Inc., Asian Pacific American Bar Ass'n for Washington, D.C., Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, Ass'n for Neighborhood Housing Development, Inc., Minerva Chin, Director of Chinatown Community Project in Educ., Asian Childrens Underground, Ronald Chin, Vice President of Asian Management and Business Association, Chinatown Tenants Council, Chinatown Neighborhood Improvement Resource Center, Chinese Hand Laundry Ass'n, Clinton Coalition of Concern, Inc., Community Action for Legal Services, Inc., Community Development Legal Assistance Center, Crown Heights Neighborhood Improvement Ass'n, Jose Antonio Cruz, Board Chair of the Brooklyn Hispanic Community Organization, Downtown Independent Democrats, East New York Development Corp., Fay Chaw Merchants' Ass'n, Inc., Miriam Friedlander, City Councilwoman, Mark Greenberg, Coordinator of the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing, Heath, Rosenthal and Weissman; Housing Conservation Coordinators, Inc., Housing Committee of the New York City Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, Interim Community Development Ass'n, Michio Kaku, Phd., Professor of Physics, City University of New York, Latimer-Woods Economic Development Association, Inc., Legal Services Staff Ass'n, Lower East Side Catholic Area Conference, Lower East Side Coalition Housing Development, Lower East Side Joint Planning Council, Lower Manhattan Loft Tenants, C. Vernon Mason, Esq., Ruth Messinger, City Councilwoman, Metropolitan Council on Housing, National Caucus and Center on Black Aged, Inc., National Housing Law Project, National Latinas Caucas, National Low Income Housing Coalition, New Democratic Movement, New York Hispanic Housing Coalition/Lower East Side Technical Assistance Project, New York State Tenant Neighborhood Coalition, Old Trenton Neighborhood Development Corp., Park Slope Fifth Avenue Local Development Corp., David Paterson, State Senator of the 29th Senatorial Dist., People's Firehouse, Inc., The Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development, Pueblo Nuevo Housing and Development Association, Puerto Rican Ass'n for Community Affairs, Inc., Randolph Scott-McLaughlin, Associate Legal Director, Center for Constitutional Rights, Save the Village, Strycker's Bay Neighborhood Council, Suffolk Housing Services, Tai Pun Residents Ass'n, Tsung Tsin Ass'n, Inc., Union of City Tenants, Urban Homesteading and Assistance Board, and Village Independent Democrats, as amici curiae.

Daniel J. Popeo, of counsel (Gerald J. Popeo and George C. Smith, attorneys), for Washington Legal Foundation, as amicus curiae.

Alan Rosner, Helen Hershkoff and Scott A. Rosenberg, of counsel (Kalman Finkel, as Attorney-in-Charge, Helaine Barnett as Project Director, Arthur J. Fried, as Supervising Attorney and John E. Kirklin, as Director of Litigation), for The Legal Aid Society of New York as amicus curiae on behalf of the Homeless Family Rights Project.

Before SULLIVAN, J.P., and ROSS, CARRO, ASCH and WALLACH, JJ.

ROSS, Justice.

In this matter we are presented with the issue of whether the City of New York properly exercised its zoning power in creating the Special Manhattan Bridge District, which is located in the Chinatown area, in view of the allegation that the City did not affirmatively order the construction of dwelling units for low and moderate income persons.

Since New York City is a political subdivision of the State of New York, it only possesses those governmental powers delegated to it by the State (N.Y. Const., Art. 9, §§ 1 and 2). Zoning is one of these delegated powers, and the City "must find its source in ... [an] enabling act of the Legislature ..." (Matter of Barker v. Switzer, 209 App.Div. 151, 153, 205 N.Y.S. 108 (1924), app. dismd., 238 N.Y. 624, 144 N.E. 918 (1924)) [material in brackets added].

The New York State General City Law, § 20, subdivisions 24 and 25, sets forth the permissible objectives of the zoning power of cities, outlines the types of regulation which may be promulgated, and imposes some specific limitations on the exercise of the power. Incidentally, "[t]he first zoning ordinance in the United States was the Zoning Resolution of the City of New York adopted in July 1916 ..." (1 ARDEN H. RATHKOPF & DAREN A. RATHKOPF, THE LAW OF ZONING AND PLANNING § 1.01, at 1-6 (4th ed. 1984)) [material in brackets added]. This first zoning ordinance resulted from an intensive six-year study, and was intended to, inter alia, insure the public health and safety by a planned development of the City of New York (1 JAMES METZENBAUM, LAW OF ZONING at 7 (2d ed. 1955)).

Chief Judge Cardozo observed in a concurring opinion in Adler v. Deegan, 251 N.Y. 467, 485, 167 N.E. 705 (1929), remittitur amd. 252 N.Y. 615, 170 N.E. 164 (1930), "[a] zoning resolution in many of its features is distinctively a city affair, a concern of the locality, affecting, as it does, the density of population, the growth of city life, and the course of city values ..." [material in brackets added].

A zoning ordinance, like any other legislative enactment, is "invested with an exceedingly strong presumption of constitutionality ..." (Huntington v. Park Shore, 47 N.Y.2d 61, 65, 416 N.Y.S.2d 774, 390 N.E.2d 282 (1979)).

The Court of Appeals held in Rodgers v. Village of Tarrytown, 302 N.Y. 115, 121, 96 N.E.2d 731 (1951), that:

"[the] decision as to how a community shall be zoned or rezoned, as to how various properties shall be classified or reclassified, rests with the local legislative body; its judgment and determination will be conclusive, beyond interference from the courts, unless shown to be arbitrary, and the burden of establishing such arbitrariness is imposed upon him who asserts it. In that connection, we recently said (Shepard v. Village of Skaneateles, 300 NY 115, 118, [89 N.E.2d 619 (1949) ] ): 'Upon parties who attack an ordinance ... rests the burden of showing that the regulation assailed is not justified under the police power of the state by any reasonable interpretation of the facts ...' " [material in brackets added].

The continuing vitality of the decision in Rodgers v. Village of Tarrytown, supra, is evidenced by its citation as authority by a 1984 unanimous opinion of the Court of Appeals (Cummings et al v. Town Board of North Castle et al, 62 N.Y.2d 833, 834, 477 N.Y.S.2d 607, 466 N.E.2d 147 (1984)).

The New York City Planning Commission (Planning Commission), in September 1979, published the Manhattan Bridge Area Study. This study was based upon a detailed examination of the Chinatown area of Manhattan. Due to the specialized character of Chinatown, the study had been conducted from the point of view of land use planning, and it concentrated on the commercial and residential needs of that area.

The Chairman of the Planning Commission and Director of City Planning (Chairman), in an affidavit, dated November 1, 1983, which appears in the record before this Court, states, in pertinent part:

"The study found that with a continuing influx of Chinese immigrants, the old tenements of Chinatown were severely overcrowded. Because of the concentration of attached tenement housing, open space in Chinatown was found to be almost nonexistent ... The study also discovered that there was little new construction of housing within Chinatown. A major reason for this lack of new construction was that the existing density of Chinatown tenements was substantially higher than the density permitted under the existing zoning regulations. Consequently, any new construction which would replace obsolete old tenements could not provide an equal number of dwelling units ...".

In response to the study's findings of a critical housing shortage in Chinatown, the Planning Commission proposed zoning amendments, which, if adopted, would result in the creation of a Special District (District) within the Manhattan Bridge area.

Before the Planning Commission made this proposal for the establishment of the District, extensive research and analysis had been undertaken by the Department of New York City Planning of the City of New York, in conjunction with urban planners, architects, and engineers. We note the amount of expert assisted planning that went into developing the Planning Commission's proposal, since the use by a planning agency of expert assistance is evidence that a proposed zoning change ...