City of Olivette v. Graeler
Decision Date | 04 June 1963 |
Docket Number | No. 2,No. 49385,49385,2 |
Parties | CITY OF OLIVETTE, a Municipal Corporation, Respondent, v. Walter GRAELER et al., Defendant-Appellants, Industrial Properties, Inc. et al., Intervenor-Appellants |
Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Claude W. McElwee, St. Louis, William E. Gallagher, St. Louis County Counselor Richard E. Crowe, Asst. County Counselor, Lewis, Rice, Tucker, Allen & Chubb and James A. Singer, J. L. Pierson and Lawrence A. Waldman, Clayton, for certain appellants.
Fordyce, Mayne, Hartman, Renard & Stribling and Thomas Rowe Schwarz, St. Louis, for Monsanto Chemical Co. and General Electric Co.
Carroll J. Donohue, Shulamith Simon, Husch, Eppenberger, Donohue, Elson & Jones, St. Louis, for plaintiff-respondent, City of Olivette.
This is a declaratory judgment action seeking approval of a proposed annexation under the 'Sawyers Act' enacted in 1953, now Sec. 71.015, RSMo 1959, V.A.M.S. Various defenses were raised in the answers. It will not be necessary to review the pleadings, for such parts as are material to any issue will be noted later. The suit was filed on February 13, 1957. Industrial Properties, Inc., the owner of considerable property in the area proposed for annexation, was permitted to intervene. The parties originally named as defendants were chosen as representatives of the class of inhabitants of that area and there has been no objection whatever to the validity of this representation. After the first trial, motions of the defendants and intervenor for a new trial were sustained and the petition was dismissed; this was done upon the theory that the areas of St. Louis County lying outside of cities, towns and villages were not 'unincorporated area' within the meaning of Sec. 71.015, supra, and thus were not subject to annexation under that Act. Plaintiff appealed. The judgment dismissing the petition was reversed, but the order granting a new trial was affirmed and the case was remanded for trial on the merits. Our opinion appears at Mo., 338 S.W.2d 827.
Following the remand, St. Louis County and James H. J. McNary, County Supervisor, intervened as parties defendant by leave and filed answer. They oppose the annexation. Thereafter, General Electric Company and Monsanto Chemical Company, owners of industrial property in the area, were granted leave to intervene 'upon adoption by said intervenors of the pleading of Walter Graeler.' The second trial began on March 20, 1961, and the evidence was concluded on July 27, 1961. During that trial other corporations owning industrial property in the proposed area intervened and filed a joint answer by leave of court, as shown in the caption of this opinion. On December 18, 1961, the court entered its decree authorizing the annexation; this will be referred to in more detail later. The 'defendants' filed a motion for a new trial and when this was overruled 'defendants and intervenor defendants' appealed. It was stipulated at the second trial that the entire transcript of the first trial should be incorporated into the record. Both records are voluminous and, so far as the first trial is concerned, the facts are sufficiently shown in our opinion at Mo., 338 S.W.2d 827. Jurisdiction was accepted here on the first appeal, on transfer from the St. Louis Court of Appeals (329 S.W.2d 275), upon the ground that a construction of Sec. 18 of Art. VI of our 1945 Constitution was involved. Upon the present appeal the County is a party and this gives us jurisdiction under Art. V, Sec. 3 of the Constitution, V.A.M.S. Certain constitutional questions are also urged here; these will be referred to later.
In general, all original defendants and all Intervenor-Defendants have asserted at every stage: that the proposed annexation is unreasonable and arbitrary; that it is not necessary to the proper development of Olivette; that it is not in the best interest of St. Louis County as a community; that it is unreasonable as to the inhabitants and owners in the proposed area; that Olivette is not in position to furnish services to the area comparable to those which the County can furnish; that the inhabitants and owners in the 'area' would receive no benefits but, on the contrary, an additional burden of taxation. Plaintiff, in its pleadings, evidence, briefs and argument, has strenuously asserted (affirmatively) the converse of all such propositions.
Much of the second transcript consists of repetition of evidence from the first one. We adopt here the facts recited at 338 S.W.2d pages 830-832, inclusive, concerning the statistical, political and geographic status of Olivette and of the proposed 'area' as of the time of the first trial in December 1957. The area of Olivette has not been enlarged since 1957; its population in 1960 was 8,257. The area proposed for annexation (which we shall usually describe as the 'area') lies west of the north half of Olivette; an unincorporated area known as 'Elmwood' lies along part of Olivette's north side. The record indicates that the latter is regarded as rather 'run down' and not highly desirable, although Olivette did in the past annex a portion of it, and now proposes for that a land clearance project, federally financed.
The area proposed for annexation contains approximately 303 acres. Its boundaries (without regarded to streets and roads) are generally: The City of Olivette on the east, perhaps for a mile; the City of Creve Coeur on the south and along a short portion of its west boundary; an unincorporated area along the remainder of its west boundary, and the Rock Island Railroad on the north, across which lies the City of Overland, with some industrial development nearby. In the north part of the present proposed 'area' an industrial subdivision of nearly fifty acres was established a few years ago. This is zoned by the County as industrial. In that subdivision there are now warehouses, general sales offices and similar bases of operation, largely of nationally known corporations. The lots are of relatively large size. Just south of the eastern half of that subdivision, another tract of forty acres in the 'area' has also been zoned industrial; several lots have been sold and several industrial buildings had been erected or were in the course of erection at the time of trial. These are all substantial buildings, and this land was sold during 1960 and 1961 at prices ranging from about $22,000 to $24,500 an acre. The original forty-acre tract had been bought in 1958 for something over $5,000 an acre. Both of these tracts (i. e., the subdivision and the forty acres) were selected for industrial development by the purchaser because of their proximity to good transportation by highway, railraod and air, as well as for the general suitability of the land area. Lindbergh Road, or U. S. Highway No. 66, runs along the entire west side of the area; the C. R. I. & P. Railroad skirts the entire north side; Warson Road, a county road, runs along the east side, 150 feet west of the actual boundary. Much of the remaining land in the 'area' lies in tracts said to be agricultural; but it seems clear that all of the land in the 'area' has clearly grown out of, or has at least been priced out of, the class of agricultural land; a few families continue to reside on it out of sentiment or for convenience, and a few new houses have been built along the very eastern edge. The evidence fairly shows that substantially the whole of the 303 acres is well suited for industrial development. Something more than half of it was still zoned by the County for single-family residences at the time of the second trial; there was some commercial development and a small zoning for multi-family housing. The foregoing, it may be assumed, merely showed the status of the area pending adoption of the new County Land-Use Plan, referred to later. In the northwest corner of the area a sort of finger reaches out between Lindbergh Boulevard and the Rock Island tracks. There is little development there,--a few houses and two or three commercial buildings, apparently of no great consequence. It is zoned industrial.
The roads or streets in or near the 'area' are: Warson Road, already noted; Olive Street Road, a state highway (which also runs east and west through the center of Olivette) on the south, but 200 feet inside the north line of the City of Creve Coeur Lindbergh Boulevard, along the entire west boundary; and Baur Boulevard, a private road established by the industrial developer, running generally east and west through the original industrial subdivision; this, it is said, is now in the process of being dedicated as a public street. A strip of 150 feet of the unincorporated area lies between Warson Road and Olivette. The assessed valuation of real property in the 'area' is $1,529,250.
The industrial development in this area has ample water from two twelve-inch mains running along Warson Road, presumably operated by the St. Louis County Water Company. The water is or could be made readily available to the rest of the 'area.' The industrial area has ample and approved sewage facilities because its then owner contributed substantially with others to run a large Metropolitan Sewer District line from the northwest corner of Olivette to the area. This line runs partly inside Clivette's north line and partly outside, but it now serves an area in the north part of Olivette. Thus, sewage facilities could likewise be extended in the 'area' at normal expense. This sewer line was not paid for, in whole or in part, by the City of Olivette, but various private owners contributed the cost. The area owners also ran storm sewers along Warson Road. The area receives power and light from the Union Electric Company. Little policing of the area has ever been required, but the County police cars patrol the area and have, upon occasions, reported...
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