Berberian v. Housing Authority of City of Cranston

• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: ROBERTS
• Citation: Berberian v. Housing Authority of City of Cranston, 315 A.2d 747, 112 R.I. 771 (R.I. 1974)
• Decision Date: 08 March 1974
• Docket Number: No. 1755-M,1755-M
• Parties: Aram K. BERBERIAN v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF the CITY OF CRANSTON. P.

Page 747

315 A.2d 747

112 R.I. 771

Aram K. BERBERIAN v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF the CITY OF CRANSTON.

No. 1755-M.P.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

March 8, 1974.

Aram K. Berberian, pro se.

Jeremiah S. Jeremiah, Jr., Asst. City Sol., for respondent.

OPINION

ROBERTS, Chief Justice.

This is a petition for certiorari to review a decision of the Minimum Housing Board of Review of the City of Cranston denying the petitioner's appeal from a compliance order issued by the Director of the Division of Minimum Housing Standards of the City of Cranston. The board of review denied the appeal on March 16, 1972, and upheld the decision of the director. The petitioner then filed this petition for a writ of certiorari, which writ issued, and the record of the case has been certified to this court.

It appears from the record that on August 23, 1971, petitioner was issued a violation notice by the Division of Minimum Housing Standards of the City of Cranston, which stated that the exterior of petitioner's dwelling house in that city was in need of painting and granted petitioner until October 22, 1971, to comply with the terms of that violation notice. The record further shows that petitioner, pursuant to The Code of the City of Cranston, Rhode Island, article III, sec. 14-22, requested and was granted a hearing before the Director of the Division of Minimum Housing Standards of the City of Cranston, at which hearing the director upheld the violation notice and issued the above-mentioned compliance order. As noted above, petitioner appealed this compliance order to the Minimum Housing Board of Review, which upheld the compliance order.

The first contention of petitioner is that requiring an owner to paint or repaint a dwelling house does not constitute a valid exercise of the police power of the state. We are confronted, then, with whether the state, in delegating to the municipal legislature of the city of Cranston authority to enact a minimum standards housing ordinance, acted beyond the scope of the police power. The petitioner argues that the order to paint his house bears no reasonable relationship to the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the public and thus is beyond the police power purported to be delegated to the city of Cranston in order to permit the enactment of an ordinance controlling the same. We think petitioner has failed to sustain his contention.

The contested enactment, G.L.1956 (1970 Reenactment) § 45-24.2-1(1), states a legislative finding that there exist in the various cities and towns of the state many dwellings which are substandard due to dilapidation, deterioration, disrepair, uncleanliness, and other conditions and defects; § 45-24.2-1(2) and (3) state '(2) that these conditions, singly or in combination, endanger the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the people of the various cities and towns and give impetus to the development, continuation, extension and aggravation of blighted and substandard housing conditions; and (3) it is hereby declared to be a matter of legislative determination that the establishment of minimum standards for dwellings is essential to the protection of the public health, safety, morals and general welfare.' (Emphasis added.)

In our opinion, the enactment of legislation to prevent the development of blight and thereby prevent the creation of slums is well within the police power of the state. Accordingly, the city of Cranston may properly require petitioner to paint his home and thus prevent the blighting of a residential area by a dilapidated, peeling house.

In Palombo v. Housing Board of Review, 92 R.I. 421, 424, 169 A.2d 613, 615 (1961), we held that the delegation...