Bright v. City of Evanston
| Decision Date | 27 November 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 33918,33918 |
| Citation | 10 Ill.2d 178,139 N.E.2d 270 |
| Parties | Michael BRIGHT, Appellee, v. The CITY OF EVANSTON, Appellant. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
Rex Bullinger, Corp. Counsel, Evanston, and Johnston, Thompson, Raymond, Mayer & Jenner, Chicago (Floyd E. Thompson, and Prentice H. Marshall, Chicago, of counsel), for appellant.
Grossman & Grossman, Chicago (William C. Wines, Chicago, of counsel), for appellee.
Lois Cavanagh brought an action in the circuit court of Cook County against the city of Evanston, seeking a judgment declaring unconstitutional and void the city's zoning ordinance insofar as it affected her property. Michael Bright thereafter purchased the property and was substituted as plaintiff. After hearing evidence the court rendered judgment granting the relief. The city appeals directly to this court, the trial court having certified that the validity of an ordinance is involved and that the public interest requires such direct appeal.
The property is a vacant lot situated near the edge but within the limits of an area which has been zoned for single-family dwellings since 1921. Plaintiff desires to erect a seven-story apartment building thereon. Although the surrounding area has been fully developed for many years with homes and commercial buildings, no structure has apparently ever been erected on the present lot. It is located at the southwest corner of Davis Street and Judson Avenue in the city of Evanston, having a frontage of 100 feet along Davis Street, a one-way street running east to west, and 138 feet along Judson Avenue, a north-and-south thoroughfare. The alley west of the lot, between Judson Avenue and Hinman Avenue (the next street west), forms the boundary between the residential district to the east and the commercial zone to the west. On the west side of the alley, less than 100 feet from the subject property, is a seven-story hotel, the general area along and beyond Hinman Avenue being a concentrated commercial district with filling station, garage, multiple-story apartment buildings, stores and other business establishments.
All of the properties immediately adjacent to the present lot are used for residence purposes. There is a frame house between the lot and the alley, occupied by an interior decorator as a residence, and also used for consultation with customers during business hours. All the lots in the neighborhood on the north, south and east of plaintiff's lot are improved with residences. Although a few are rooming houses, several residences of good quality have been built in recent years, and most of the structures are substantial single-family dwellings. The evidence further shows that the subject property is worth about $12,000 for single-family dwelling purposes and about $50,000 or more for development for apartment building purposes. Expert witnesses on behalf of defendant testified that the proposed use of plaintiff's lot would substantially reduce the value of surrounding family dwellings, while experts for the plaintiff testified there would be no detrimental effect on property east of Judson Avenue.
Although the lot is located less than a block from a highly developed commercial district, it is nevertheless within the boundaries of an area long devoted to single-family dwellings. No doubt a new apartment building would furnish desirable homes where not one but many families could live. The close proximity of the lot to other apartment, hotel, and general commercial facilities, together with the evidence that it has always been vacant and is undesirable as a site for a single-family residence, indicate that its improvement with an apartment building would afford a distinct asset to the community; and the plaintiff argues that in view of such factors and the growth of population it is a poor policy that ignores the demand for modern apartments. But matters of policy, or the wisdom and desirability of a particular restriction, are no within the domain of judicial competence. Downey v. Grimshaw, 410 Ill. 21, 101 N.E.2d 275. Unless it is shown to be arbitrary and unrelated to public health, safety and welfare, the judgment of the municipal authority will not be disturbed.
Although the parties have presented extensive arguments on the issue of validity, we think a determination of whether the ordinance is arbitrary and unreasonable is premature in this case. We agree with the contention that plaintiff cannot challenge the validity of the ordinance in its application to his property without first exhausting an administrative remedy. Under the city's zoning ordinance, applications to vary a classification as it affects particular property may be made to the board of appeals, which is authorized to recommend variations to the city council in cases of practical difficulties and particular hardship. Neither the present plaintiff nor his predecessor made such application for relief. While no Illinois cases have been cited in which the present question was presented, there have been several decisions in foreign jurisdictions on the effect of a failure to exhaust other remedies before seeking judicial relief from the application of zoning restictions to particular properties.
In Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 47 S.Ct. 114, 71 L.Ed. 303, a comprehensive and complicated zoning ordinance purported to divide the village according to six classes of use districts, three classes of height districts and four classes of area districts, each regulating the land in minute detail and overlapping districts of other classifications. A board of zoning appeals was given the power, in specific cases of practical difficulty or unnecessary hardship, to interpret the ordinance so that substantial justice might be done. Without applying to the board for relief, the owner of a tract of land embraced within several of these districts brought suit for an injunction to restrain, as to plaintiff's property, the enforcement of the ordinance and its various restrictions, limitations and conditions. It was alleged that the ordinance attempts to restrict and control the use of the land so as to confiscate and destroy a great part of its value; that prospective buyers of land for industrial, commercial and residential uses are deterred from buying any part of this land because of the ordinance, and the necessity of burdensome and expensive litigation to vindicate the right to use the land for legitimate purposes; and that the ordinance results in diverting normal industrial, commercial and residential development to other and less favorable...
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...applied to "use" variance applications.10 We interpret the terms generally to be indistinguishable. Cf. Bright v. City of Evanston, 10 Ill.2d 178, 182, 139 N.E.2d 270, 272-73 (1956) (citing Central Trust Co. v. City of Cincinnati, 62 Ohio App. 139, 23 N.E.2d 450, 453 (1939)) (using the term......
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International College of Surgeons v. City of Chicago, Ill.
...factual matters in which the specialized agency is thought to be more proficient.The earlier pronouncement in Bright v. City of Evanston, 10 Ill.2d 178, 139 N.E.2d 270, 274 (1957), was even more graphic in its statement of the general rule:A review of applicable authorities would seem to in......
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Payne v. Pullman Co.
...130, 45 N.E.2d 984. It has also been applied to administrative bodies such as utility and zoning commissions. Bright b. City of Evanston, Ill, 139 N.E.2d 270; City of Chicago v. O'Connell, 1917, 278 Ill. 591, 116 N.E. 210, 8 A.L.R. 916; Bistor v. McDonough, 1932, 348 Ill. 624, 181 N.E. 417;......
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Pecora v. County of Cook
...* * * judicial relief is appropriate only after available administrative remedies have been exhausted." Bright v. City of Evanston, 10 Ill.2d 178, 185, 139 N.E.2d 270, 274 (1956). "The Bright rule * * * is * * * an expression of judicial policy prompted by the circumstance that zoning is le......