State ex rel. Townsend v. Board of Park Commissioners of City of Minneapolis
| Decision Date | 21 February 1907 |
| Docket Number | 14,897 - (82) |
| Citation | 110 N.W. 1121,100 Minn. 150 |
| Parties | STATE ex rel. WILLIAM H. TOWNSEND v. BOARD OF PARK COMMISSIONERS OF CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Appeal by the relator from an order of the district court for Hennepin county, Holt, J., overruling a demurrer to the answer. Affirmed.
Parks and Parkways.
The power to lay out, open, vacate, or abandon public highways parks, or parkways is legislative, to be exercised by the legislature itself, or municipal boards to which it is delegated.
Contract Limiting Control of City.
A municipality, acting through its legislative body, has no power to enter into contracts which curtail or prohibit an exercise of its legislative or administrative authority over streets, highways, or public grounds, whenever the public interests demand that it should act.
Application to Legislature.
The rule applies to the legislature itself, and prohibits that body from alienating or surrendering the right and duty to exercise appropriate supervision over public streets and grounds whenever the welfare of the state requires its action.
Perpetual Care of Street.
Relator and other owners of property along Hennepin avenue in the city of Minneapolis conveyed a strip of land on either side of the avenue to the city to enable the park board to transform the avenue into a parkway, for the consideration in part, that the avenue should thereafter be forever maintained as a parkway free of cost by special assessment or otherwise to the property owners so conveying to the city. Held that, so far as the contract arising from this transaction required the park board perpetually to maintain the avenue as a parkway free of cost to relator is concerned, it was an attempted alienation of legislative duties to the public respecting the control and management of public highways, and invalid, even though the act of the legislature creating the park board may be construed to confer authority upon the board to enter into it.
Vacation of Parkway.
A determination by proper legislative authority that public interests require or justify the vacation of streets or public grounds of any description is final and conclusive upon the courts, except when reviewed in the manner prescribed by law, and will be presumed to have been based upon a consideration of public interests.
Vacation of Parkway.
The parkway involved in the case at bar is held to have been vacated by the action of the park board under authority of chapter 304, p. 546, Sp. Laws 1885.
Daniel Fish, for appellant.
C. J. Rockwood, for respondent.
Proceedings in mandamus to compel the board of park commissioners of the city of Minneapolis to resume the duties imposed upon it respecting the maintenance and management of the public parkway of that city known as Hennepin Boulevard.
It appears from the pleadings, among other things, that the board of park commissioners of the city of Minneapolis was created and organized pursuant to chapter 281, p. 404, Sp. Laws 1883. That statute authorized, in general terms, the park board to acquire for park and parkway purposes lands adjacent to or within the city, either by purchase, donation, or condemnation proceedings, and thereafter to maintain the same for the purposes for which they were acquired, to levy assessments against lands benefited by the proposed park or parkway, and to exempt therefrom certain property owners who conveyed lands to the city for such purposes. It was also authorized to issue bonds of the city for the purpose of defraying expenses incurred in the purchase of lands, the amount of which was made a lien upon all parks acquired by the board. The act further provided that lands which were obtained and devoted to park and parkway purposes should forever remain such for the free use of the inhabitants of the city, subject to such rules and regulations as the board might from time to time prescribe.
Under the authority thus conferred, the park board, with the consent of the city council, converted Hennepin avenue, an existing street, into a parkway. To enable the board to accomplish this, it became necessary to obtain from the owners of property abutting upon the avenue a strip of land eleven feet wide on either side of the same. This was obtained by deeds of conveyance from the various owners, including relator, all of which contained a provision to the effect that the transfer to the city was made at the instance of the park board for parkway purposes, and upon the express agreement and understanding that, in addition to the consideration therein expressed ($80), all other property then owned by the grantors should be thereafter exempt from all assessments appertaining to the improvement of the avenue as a parkway. These deeds conveyed, in addition to the eleven-foot strip just referred to, title to the center of the street. They were accepted by the board, and thereafter possession was taken and the strip improved by sodding and planting ornamental trees therein.
The park board continued in the control and supervision of the avenue so transformed into a parkway until 1905, when, acting under the authority conferred by chapter 304, p. 546, Sp. Laws 1885, a resolution was adopted by it vacating and abandoning the same as one of the parkways of the city, on the ground that it was impracticable to continue its maintenance for that purpose. Thereafter relator brought this proceeding to compel the board to resume control of the avenue and to maintain the same as a parkway. The facts are fully set forth in the writ and defendant's answer. Relator appeals from an order of the court below overruling his demurrer to the answer.
The proceeding is founded upon the contention that the transaction between the owners of abutting property along Hennepin avenue and the park board, by which the eleven-foot strip was conveyed to the city at the instance of the board, constituted a contract between the parties, by which the park board bound itself perpetually to maintain the avenue as a parkway, free of cost or expense by special assessment or otherwise to the adjacent property owners, who conveyed the strip of land mentioned upon that consideration; that the rights of the parties became unalterably fixed when the deeds were executed and delivered to the city; and that the board could not thereafter either vacate or abandon the avenue as a parkway, but was for all future time to maintain the same for the purposes contemplated by the parties. It is also contended that the power given the park board by chapter 304, p. 546, Sp. Laws 1885, to vacate and discontinue parks, parkways, and boulevards is inoperative as to the parkway here in question, for the reason that the power to vacate was granted subsequent to the contract alleged to have been entered into, evidenced by the deeds to the park board, the obligations of which, it is insisted, could not be impaired by subsequent legislative action.
Hennepin avenue is, and has been at all times since the incorporation of the city, a public street, and a substantial view of the facts disclosed by the pleadings will not permit of a conclusion that its character as such, except to the extent to which it may be used by the public, has ever been changed by any act of the park board or the city council. The park board took possession of it in 1884, with the consent of the city council, for the purpose of transforming it into a parkway, but with no intention that its character as a public thoroughfare of the city should be at all changed, save in a restriction of travel thereon. There seems to have been some doubt of the authority of the board, under the act creating it, to take possession of existing streets and transform them into parkways, and to remove this doubt chapter 304, p. 546, Sp. Laws 1885, was enacted. It was there provided that all parkways which had been theretofore, or which might thereafter be, acquired in or adjacent to the city should be subject to the control and government of the park board, provided that no street, alley, or public place should be made a parkway without the consent of the city council. So that whether, strictly speaking, the action of the park board in taking possession of this avenue and transforming it into a parkway was authorized or not, the action of the board was confirmed by the act of the legislature just referred to. It is probable that the authority of the board over this particular parkway was erroneously restricted by the decision in State v. Waddell, 49 Minn. 501, 52 N.W. 213, occasioned by a failure of counsel to call attention to a statute which seems to support the validity of the ordinance there before the court. But we are not concerned with that question at this time. For reasons presently to be stated we are bound to assume that the act of the board in vacating the parkway was based upon a consideration of public interests into the merits of which we are not permitted to inquire.
The basis of this proceeding, from the standpoint of relator, as already observed, is the alleged contract right possessed by him to the continued existence and maintenance of this avenue as a parkway. It may be conceded for the purposes of the case that the transaction between the relator and the board constituted in a strict legal sense a contract between the parties, but it is clear that it was ultra vires and not enforceable. It is elementary and fundamental that the power to lay out, open, widen, extend, vacate, or abandon public highways, public parks, parkways, or boulevards is legislative, pure and simple, to be exercised by the legislature itself, or by municipal boards to which it may be delegated. It is also elementary that a municipality, acting...
To continue reading
Request your trial