La Salle Nat. Bank v. City of Chicago
| Citation | 122 N.E.2d 519,4 Ill.2d 253 |
| Decision Date | 18 November 1954 |
| Docket Number | No. 33251,33251 |
| Parties | LA SALLE NATIONAL BANK, as Trustee, Appellee, v. The CITY OF CHICAGO, Appellant. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Illinois |
John J. Mortimer, Corp. Counsel, Chicago, L. Louis Karton, and Arthur Magid, of counsel, for appellant.
Maurice L. Blonsley, Harry G. Fins, Chicago, of counsel, for appellee.
Plaintiff instituted a declaratory judgment proceeding in the circuit court of Cook County against the defendant, the city of Chicago, to have the court declare invalid and restrain the enforcement of a city ordinance enacted on March 18, 1931, zoning plaintiff's property to apartment use, and also the comprehensive Chicago Amendatory Ordinance of December 3, 1942, insofar as it rezoned plaintiff's property from apartment to single-family residence use. After a hearing, the trial court entered a decree finding the zoning ordinances bore no reasonable relation to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare and were void and of no effect. The court further declared that the plaintiff and its successors and assigns should have the right to use and maintain the land in question for such retail business uses as are permitted under the Chicago zoning ordinance of April 5, 1923, except as to the north five feet and the west five feet which were to remain zoned 'Single Family Residence' and to be landscaped with shrubberies. There was also a provision that the parking area should be black-top surfaced.
The trial judge having certified that the validity of a municipal ordinance is involved, defendant has taken a direct appeal to this court. Appellant insists that both ordinances are valid and reasonably related to the public health, safety, morals, comfort and welfare and are not an unreasonable exercise of police power or in violation of the spirit or intent of the zoning statutes and that plaintiff was not thereby deprived of its property without due process of law, and that the trial court erred in holding that said zoning ordinances were void and of no effect as applied to plaintiff's property.
The evidence establishes that plaintiff as trustee is the owner of a vacant lot at the northwest corner of Kedzie Avenue and 115th Street in the city of Chicago, having a frontage of 169 feet on Kedzie Avenue and a depth of 300 feet along 115th Street. Plaintiff desires to construct a shopping center of six or seven stores, each about 20 feet wide by 75 feet in depth with an auto parking area in the rear. The lot was purchased in 1925 by an individual who later conveyed it to the plaintiff as trustee. At that time, it was a part of the village of Mt. Greenwood, which was annexed to the city of Chicago on Feb uary 22, 1927. The property was unzoned until the ordinance of March 18, 1931, and the subsequent amendatory ordinance of December 3, 1942. No apartments were ever constructed in the surrounding area.
Of the four corners at the intersection of Kedzie Avenue and 115th Street, only the northwest corner lies in the city of Chicago, the other three being within the village of Merrionette Park. Diagonally across from the proposed shopping center is a new housing project of 350 homes. The closest business shopping center to this new development is located at 111th Street and Kedzie Avenue, about a half mile away.
The surrounding area is now about 90 per cent built up and entirely residential with the exception of a store on the north side of 115th Street about a block away where it has been located for many years; some greenhouses in the rear of a single-family dwelling which have been in their present location 28 years; two cemeteries four blocks to the south; and a trucking garage behind a single-family dwelling, used by the owner to park two of his trucks therein and to make some repairs on his trucks when required.
Witnesses for the plaintiff testified that the proposed shopping center would benefit the inhabitants of the 350 new homes and other residents of the area, that to erect single-family residences on the subject corner is undesirable because it is an intersection of two bus lines, that all transfer corners in Chicago are zoned for commercial rather than residential purposes and that the value of plaintiff's property would be cut at least in half if it were used for residential rather than commercial purposes.
Witnesses for the defendant testified that the proposed shopping center was too small to accommodate the needs of the residents of the surrounding area, that the shopping center at 111th Street is easily accessible as it is only a half mile away, and that the value of the surrounding residential property would be reduced by the proposed construction.
We have previously held upon many occasions that there is a presumption of validity in favor of a zoning ordinance adopted pursuant to a legislative grant and the one...
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Thompson v. Cook County Zoning Bd. of Appeals
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