Pet Car Products, Inc. v. Barnett

• Decision Date: 02 October 1962
• Citation: 150 Conn. 42,184 A.2d 797
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: PET CAR PRODUCTS, INC. v. Harry BARNETT et al. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 797

184 A.2d 797

150 Conn. 42

PET CAR PRODUCTS, INC. v. Harry BARNETT et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

Oct. 2, 1962.

Louis Feinmark, New Haven, with whom was James R. Greenfield, New Haven, for appellant (plaintiff).

William R. Murphy, New Haven, with whom were Donald F. Keefe and Howard R. Moskof, New Haven, for appellees (defendants).

Before BALDWIN, C. J., and KING, MURHPY, SHEA and ALCORN, JJ.

ALCORN, Justice.

The plaintiff, owner of real estate within an area designated by the New Haven Redevelopment Agency as the Wooster Square redevelopment and renewal area, brought this action to enjoin the agency and the city of New Haven from proceeding further to acquire its property. The clerk of the Superior Court at New Haven was made a defendant because of his statutory duty to issue a certificate of taking in connection with the condemnation proceedings sought to be enjoined. General Statutes § 8-129. The plaintiff has appealed from a judgment for the defendants and from the denial of a motion to open the judgment.

The trial concerned the procedures authorized by chapter 55 of the 1955 Cumulative Supplement, now chapter 130 of the General Statutes, relating to redevelopment and urban renewal. The underlying questions presented on the appeal are whether the agency, in approving a redevelopment plan, properly determined under § 484d(b) of the 1955 Cumulative Supplement, now § 8-125(b) of the General Statutes, that the acquisition and clearance of the plaintiff's property were essential to complete an adequate unit of development and whether, under the circumstances involved, the agency is estopped from taking the property. The method adopted to present the issues follows a course which we have repeatedly and emphatically criticized. Krupa v. Farmington River Power Co., 147 Conn. 153, 157, 157 A.2d 914, 916, appeal dismissed, 364 U.S. 506, 81 S.Ct. 281, 5 L.Ed.2d 258; Bent v. Torell, 139 Conn. 744, 747, 97 A.2d 270. The finding of the court contains 287 paragraphs. The assignment of errors attacks ninety-seven of them, although the attack on three of them is later abandoned in the brief. In addition to this bludgeoning of substantially one-third of the finding, the plaintiff assigns error in the failure of the court to find forty-five paragraphs of the draft finding. 'Such a wholesale attack upon the finding is rarely productive of beneficial results.' Krupa v. Farmington River Power Co., supra. The proposition holds true in the present case. The court has, by reference, incorporated a large number of the exhibits in the finding, thereby presenting the basic facts in considerable detail. Both the subordinate facts found and the conclusions therefrom are fully supported. The recitals which the plaintiff would have added to the finding are immaterial, are not admitted or undisputed, or may be found, sometimes in even greater detail than the plaintiff requests, in the finding. The finding is not subject to correction.

The essential facts may be stated as follows: The plaintiff is a Connecticut manufacturing corporation. In 1953, it bought a brick building at 185 Wallace Street in New Haven, with the land on which it stood. From then until 1957, the plaintiff conducted its business partly at that location and partly in rented premises on Factory Street in New Haven. In June, 1955, having first obtained a building permit and a zoning variance to permit an industrial use, the plaintiff purchased additional land, with a frame building thereon, at 191-195 Wallace Street and in the rear of 189 Wallace Street. The plaintiff then built a cinder-block building on the newly acquired land, the construction of which was finished before the end of 1955. In December, 1956, the plaintiff obtained a building permit and started the construction of a second cinder-block building on the Wallace Street land.

The idea of a plan for what came to be known as the Wooster Square redevelopment area was initiated by residents of the area at a public meeting on May 25, 1955. The area was 62.4 percent residential. Thereafter, the New Haven Redevelopment Agency, hereafter referred to as the agency, prepared, shortly before July 1955, a 'Survey and Planning Application' for submission to federal authorities. The purpose of the application was to obtain federal funds for detailed studies and plans looking toward the possible adoption of a redevelopment and renewal plan. No definite plan had been formulated by the agency of by any other body, however, at this time. In February, 1956, the federal authorities approved the advance of federal funds for the desired purpose, and surveys, studies, inspections and appraisals were made in the area from February, 1956, to June, 1957. As a part of this procedure, the plaintiff's property was studied, and, in April 1957, it was appraised for the agency. About March 20, 1956, the agency notified the plaintiff that it must move its business from the rented premises on Factory Street because that property was being taken as a part of another project known as the Oak Street redevelopment. In May, 1956, a representative of the agency offered the plaintiff assistance in relocating its Factory Street business, but the plaintiff declined the offer, stating that its attorney was handling its relocation and that it would make its own arrangements. Thereafter, during the summer of 1957, the plaintiff moved its Factory Street operations to its Wallace Street property.

In June, 1957, the agency submitted a report and an application to the urban renewal administration for a loan and grant for the redevelopment of the Wooster Square area. It was not until a year later, however, in June, 1958, that the urban renewal administration approved the agency report and the application for the loan and grant. Thereupon, pursuant to proper notice, the agency held a public hearing on June 30, 1958. On the basis of the material presented at the hearing and in the various studies, reports, surveys, inspections and appraisals, the agency, after its members had toured the area, adopted a declaration of findings and a resolution formally approving the Wooster Square redevelopment and renewal plan on July 3, 1958. The area involved in the plan includes between fifty and sixty city blocks comprising about 236 acres. The plaintiff's property is within a four-block section, planned for industrial use, which is at the northeast corner of the 236-acre redevelopment area. At the public hearing on June 30, 1958, all interested persons were given an opportunity to be heard, and they were allowed an additional opportunity, until the morning of July 3, to file written statements with the agency before it acted on the proposed plan. After the agency had approved the plan, it submitted it to the board of aldermen of New Haven, a committee of which also held a public hearing on the plan. The plaintiff did not appear, and was not represented, at either the hearing before the agency or the hearing before the committee of the board of aldermen, nor did the plaintiff submit any written statement to the agency prior to its decision.

The agency found that the Wooster Square redevelopment and renewal area was deteriorated, substandard and detrimental to the health, morals and welfare of the community; that it consisted partly of vacant or unimproved land and partly of land with structures and improvements thereon; and that it included structures not in themselves substandard or insanitary. It further specifically found the elimination of standard structures, where called for by the plan, to be essential to an adequate unit of development. It found that within the entire 236 acres covered by the plan only 31.7 acres were then devoted to industrial uses. Only seven of the existing 115 industrial structures were found to be satisfactory. It found the block in which the plaintiff's property was located to be a slum in the worst sense. That block, with the remainder of the four-block area designated for industrial use, which was found to be equally a slum, was planned for total clearance. The court inspected the plaintiff's property and the four-block area. From the evidence before it, and after inspecting the property, the court found that the brick and the frame buildings on the plaintiff's property are substandard, while the two cinder-block buildings, from a physical standpoint, are in fair condition and not substandard. It found, however, that the plaintiff's property, taken as a whole, is substandard, in view of its present condition and site.

During the three years between the first planning application to the federal authorities in July, 1955, and the agency's formal action on July 3, 1958, no definite plan was formulated for the Wooster Square area. The area had, however, been one of the subjects included in planning studies adopted by the city plan commission and approved, after public hearing, by the board of aldermen in 1951, 1953 and 1957. The agency heard nothing from the plaintiff for more than a year after the redevelopment and renewal plan was approved on July 3, 1958. On July 28, 1959, however, the plaintiff's president and its attorney advised a representative of the agency that it would like to remain at its location on Wallace Street. From then until April, 1961, repeated discussions took place between representatives of the plaintiff and representatives of the agency in the same manner as with any redeveloper on the subject of what, if anything, might be done to enable the plaintiff to continue the occupancy of its property and, at the same time, conform to the plan of redevelopment. Various factors entered into the discussions. The plaintiff's property did not conform to the standards of the agency's plan concerning off-street loading facilities, parking facilities, truck maneuvering space and minimum setbacks. If the plaintiff's buildings were permitted to remain, an L-shaped parcel difficult to...