Grubstein v. Urban Renewal Agency of City of Tampa

• Decision Date: 18 November 1959
• Citation: 115 So.2d 745
• Parties: Phillip GRUBSTEIN, Appellant, v. URBAN RENEWAL AGENCY OF CITY OF TAMPA, Florida, a public body corporate and politic under the laws of the State of Florida, and City of Tampa, a Municipal Corporation under the laws of the State of Florida, Appellees.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

Page 745

115 So.2d 745

Phillip GRUBSTEIN, Appellant, v. URBAN RENEWAL AGENCY OF CITY OF TAMPA, Florida, a public body corporate and politic under the laws of the State of Florida, and City of Tampa, a Municipal Corporation under the laws of the State of Florida, Appellees.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Nov. 18, 1959.

John A. Chilldon, Tampa, for appellant.

Cody Fowler, George B. Foss, Jr., and Fowler, White, Gillen, Yancey & Humkey, Tampa, for appellee Urban Renewal Agency of City of Tampa.

Ralph A. Marsicano, Neil C. McMullen and H. Vincent Thornton, Tampa, for appellee City of Tampa.

ROBERTS, Justice.

This is an appeal from a decree sustaining the constitutionality of Ch. 57-1904, Laws of Florida, Special Acts of 1957, and the propriety of the Maryland Avenue Slum Clearance and Urban Renewal Project proposed to be undertaken by the defendants-appellees, the City of Tampa and the Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Tampa, pursuant to the statutory authority conferred thereby.

Ch. 57-1904, supra (the 'Urban Renewal Law' hereafter), is a Special Act applicable only to the City of Tampa, providing for the clearing and redevelopment of slum and blighted areas legislatively declared to exist in the City. It is similar to slum clearance and urban redevelopment legislation adopted in a great many states, either with or without specific constitutional authority, and held valid in all but one of them, South Carolina. See Edens v. City of Columbia, 1956, 228 S.C. 563, 91 S.E.2d 280; cases collected in the annotation in 44 A.L.R.2d pp. 1414 et seq. Formerly held invalid in Georgia, such legislation has now been specifically authorized by an amendment to the Georgia Constitution adopted in 1954. See Bailey v. Housing Authority of City of Bainbridge, 1959, 214 Ga. 790, 107 S.E.2d 812. It is somewhat similar, also, to Ch. 23077, Laws of Florida, Acts of 1945, providing for the clearing and redevelopment of 'blighted areas' by housing authorities in cities of not less than 60,000 population, which Act was held unconstitutional by this court in Adams v. Housing Authority of City of Daytona Beach, Fla.1952, 60 So.2d 663.

Pursuant to the authority conferred by the Urban Renewal Law, supra, the City of Tampa has approved a plan for the clearance and redevelopment of a slum area within the City comprising some forty acres--the Maryland Avenue Slum Clearance and Urban Renewal Project. The redevelopment plan contemplates the replatting of the entire area and the laying out of an entirely new street plan, including the closing off of some existing streets. The area will be returned primarily to residential use, consistent with the residential areas adjoining the Project area to the North and West, and the remainder thereof will be devoted to neighborhood commercial uses necessary to serve the residents and to general commercial uses on two bordering main traffic arteries and light industrial uses along the bordering railroad right-of-way, already largely devoted to industrial uses.

The plaintiff owns property, alleged to be neither dilapidated nor run-down, within the Project area. In his suit to enjoin the defendants from proceeding with the Project, he attacked the Urban Renewal Law as violative of his right to acquire, possess and protect property, as an unauthorized taking of private property for private use, and as an unauthorized expenditure of public funds for private use and gain, contrary to the provisions of §§ 1 and 12, Declaration of Rights, §§ 5 and 10 of Article 9, and § 29 of Article 16, of the Florida Constitution, F.S.A.

The able Chancellor heard the evidence on the issues made by the complaint and the defendants' answer thereto and entered a final decree upholding the validity of the Act and the propriety of the proposed Project plan as against the plaintiff's attack. His decree was based on the following findings of fact therein made:

'3. That the area in question is known as the Maryland Avenue Slum Clearance and Urban Renewal Project and covers and area of approximately 40 acres; that said area is made up of many small subdivisions, poorly planned and platted; that the great majority of buildings in this area are 50 to 70 years old and in a very dilapidated condition; that the great majority of residences are built to the property line with small and inadequate yards and the buildings are occupied by many families, oft-times a large family to each room in many houses; that said area is a slum or blighted area; that this slum area is a breeding place of disease and crime, and constitutes a menace to the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the City of Tampa and requires a disproportionate expenditure of public funds to preserve the public health and prevent crime, fire, accidents, and to supply public services to the residents of the area; that the tax income to the City, County and State is low and out of proportion to the amounts of public funds required to be expended in servicing the area; that nationally, where slums have been eradicated and the area redeveloped for the best purposes, the tax income accruing has been approximately seven times greater than when the area was a slum;

'4. That the police power of the City of Tampa is inadequate to accomplish the removal or elimination of the slum conditions found, and that the area is so far deteriorated as a slum or blighted section that mere conservation methods would not accomplish the elimination of slum conditions; and that the complete replatting and redevelopment of the land on an area-wide basis is the only feasible method of slum elimination in these circumstances;

'5. That private enterprise cannot accomplish the acquisition and redevelopment of the area in question to eliminate the blighted conditions therein, because of the diversity of ownerships and the inability of one or more private persons or organizations to obtain all parcels therein without the power of eminent domain; nor would such endeavor be profitable to private enterprise;

'6. That the proposed Maryland Avenue Slum Clearance and Urban Renewal Project will, if allowed to be carried through to its completion, fit into the City of Tampa's general plans of development, improve traffic and safety conditions in the area, eliminate the blighted area in question with its disease, crime, fire hazard, and other problems growing out of slum conditions, tie into the proposed system of limited access freeways through the City, reduce a disproportionate drain on the City's financial structure, provide an improved living and working environment within the City of Tampa, and will materially benefit, protect, and conserve the health, safety, morals and general welfare of all the citizens of the City;

'7. That the owners of property and interests therein within the area in question will be assured and protected despite the utilization of the power of eminent domain by the Urban Renewal Agency, because of the requirement that just compensation must be paid upon a taking of property by the Agency, following notice, hearing and the opportunity for a jury trial; * * *.'

The foregoing findings of fact are abundantly supported by the evidence adduced before the Chancellor an, in fact, are not here controverted by the plaintiff-appellant. Nor does he question the authority of the City to exercise the power of eminent domain in the eradication of slums and the evils attendant thereon. He contends here only that (1) the redevelopment provisions of the Act, under which the Agency may sell or lease the property in the Project area, after it has been cleared of the slum conditions, to private interests for private use and development 'is for a private rather than a public use or purpose, even though such property may be located within an area designated as a 'slum", and thus invalid under the constitutional provisions mentioned above and the decision of this court in the Adams case, supra, 60 So.2d 663; and (2) that, in any event, the inclusion in the Project area of the property owned by him, which is neither dilapidated norun-down, is a violation of his organic rights, supra.

His second contention may be quickly disposed of. If the Project plan, as a whole, is valid, then the inclusion therein of sound structures or vacant land does not necessarily invalidate the Project. This is so because then purpose of the Urban Renewal Law is to transform an entire slum area into a wholesome section of the community; and to deny to the City the right to include within the area certain houses or buildings in good condition would, in some instances, defeat the over-all purpose of the statute and the Project. Thus, it is universally held that if an area as a whole is subject to clearance and rehabilitation, the condition of a single structure located therein is immaterial. See Hunter v. Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, 1953, 195 Va. 326, 78 S.E.2d 893, 901; Wilson v. City of Long Branch, 1958, 27 N.J. 360, 142 A.2d 837, 847; Randolph v. Wilmington Housing Authority, Del.1958, 139 A.2d 476, 484; Alanel Corp. v. Indianapolis Redevelopment Comm., Ind. 1958, 154 N.E.2d 515; State on Inf. of Dalton v. Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority of Kansas City, 1954, 364 Mo. 974, 270 S.W.2d 44; St. Peter's Roman Catholic Parish v. Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, 1958, 394 Pa. 194, 146 A.2d 724. No contention is made that the City was guilty of bad faith or arbitrary action in adopting the Project plan here in question and in including therein the plaintiff's property. Cf. Bahr Corp. v. O'Brion, 1959, 146 Conn. 237, 149 A.2d 691. The Chancellor found that 'the complete replatting and redevelopment of the land on an area-wide basis is the only feasible method of slum elimination'; and, in these circumstances, the plaintiff's contention in this respect cannot be sustained.

The plaintiff's first contention is not so easily resolved. We have, however, reconsidered the Adams decision, ...