Tippett v. City of Pharr, 1482
| Decision Date | 29 May 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 1482,1482 |
| Citation | 600 S.W.2d 951 |
| Parties | E. A. TIPPETT, Appellant, v. CITY OF PHARR et al., Appellees. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
The previous opinion in this case is withdrawn and this opinion, reaching the same result, is substituted therefor.
This is a rezoning case. The land involved is the Graham-Young Subdivision, an addition to the City of Pharr, Texas. Plaintiffs in the trial court were numerous landowners who resided in the Richmond Heights Subdivision, which adjoins the Graham-Young Subdivision. Defendants were the City of Pharr, Mayfair Minerals, Inc. and Urban Housing Associates. The Graham-Young Subdivision originally was zoned for single-family residential use. In 1978, the City rezoned the Graham-Young Subdivision from single-family use to multi-family use.
Mayfair Minerals, Inc., is the owner of all lots in the Graham-Young Subdivision, and Urban Housing Associates is the intended developer (for multiple family residences) thereof. Plaintiffs sought to have the rezoning ordinance declared void and its enforcement permanently enjoined.
Following a trial to the Court, sitting without a jury, a judgment was rendered which denied plaintiffs any relief and declared the rezoning ordinance to be valid. E. A. Tippett, one of the plaintiffs in the trial court, has appealed. The parties will be referred to either by name, or as "plaintiff" and "defendants," as they were in the trial court.
Plaintiff presents one point of error. That point reads:
"The trial court erred in rendering judgment for Defendants and against Plaintiffs that Amendatory Ordinance 0-78-042 was a valid exercise of the police power for the reason that the evidence showed as a matter of law that such ordinance is spot zoning unwarranted by any change in conditions in the area and therefore arbitrary and void."
The Graham-Young Subdivision us located in the west central portion of the southeast quadrant of the City of Pharr, near the intersection of two main city arteries, Sam Houston Avenue and U.S. Highway 281. It is not bounded by either of the two streets, but is in an area south of Sam Houston and east of Highway 281. It consists of approximately 10.16 acres, is rectangular in shape, is undeveloped, and though platted, is currently vacant. It is completely surrounded by land which, at the time of trial, was zoned for use as single-family residential. The abutting property north of the tract is developed with a single-family residence. The Richmond Heights Subdivision, which comprises most of the land adjoining the Graham-Young Subdivision on the west, is developed with single-family houses. The remaining adjoining land to the west and all of the land bordering the south and east of the Graham-Young Subdivision was in cultivation at the time of trial. A small tract of land about 200 feet west of the subject land is zoned for industrial use. There are presently single-family residential projects under development in the general area of the tract in question, one of which is located about 900 feet to the southeast, and the other is situated about 600 feet due east. There is also a tract about 900 feet to the northeast of the Graham-Young Subdivision which is zoned for multi-family use. This tract is south of and borders Sam Houston Avenue. Several tracts of land north of Sam Houston Avenue, which are several hundred feet distant from the property involved in this appeal, are zoned for multi-family residential use. Most of these tracts, though zoned multi-family under the comprehensive ordinance, are actually used for single-family residences.
The Graham-Young Subdivision, was zoned for single-family residences in 1974, when the City of Pharr enacted a comprehensive zoning ordinance. According to the City's Code of Ordinances, permitted and conditional uses allowed in single-family zoned areas include single-family dwellings, farming, nurseries, greenhouses, day care centers and kindergartens. Permitted and conditional uses allowed in multi-family zoned areas include apartments, duplexes, hotels, hospitals, private clubs and philanthropic institutions. Pursuant to the practices and procedures under the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, all areas originally zoned for single-family residential purposes may be rezoned as conditions change or need arises. Also, all newly-annexed land is zoned for single-family residential use.
Urban Housing Associates' proposed use of the tract in question is the building of a fifty-unit housing project to consist of duplexes and quadplexes. A proposal to rezone the tract was denied by the City's Planning and Zoning Commission. This decision was appealed to the Board of City Commissioners. It reversed the Planning and Zoning Commission's decision and enacted the rezoning ordinance. This decision was appealed to the district court, where, following a trial, the judgment under attack was rendered.
Findings of fact and conclusions of law were neither requested nor filed. Therefore, it must be presumed in this appeal that the trial court found every material disputable fact in favor of defendants. This Court can consider only the evidence that is favorable to the judgment, will disregard all evidence in conflict therewith, and must affirm the judgment if it can be sustained on any reasonable theory which finds support in the evidence. Seaman v. Seaman, 425 S.W.2d 339 (Tex.Sup.1968).
The power of the City of Pharr to pass the amendatory ordinance, which is under attack in this appeal, is not questioned. Article 1011a 1 gives a city the power to regulate the use of property within its borders by zoning "for the purpose of promoting health, safety, morals . . . or the general welfare of the community." Article 1011e authorizes rezoning (in accordance with a comprehensive plan).
Generally speaking, zoning ordinances, both original and amendatory, are presumed to be valid. Thompson v. City of Palestine, 510 S.W.2d 579 (Tex.Sup.1974). Consequently, an "extraordinary burden" rests on the party attacking the ordinance to show that no conclusive or even controversial or issuable facts or conditions exist which would authorize the City to exercise its discretion. City of Waxahachie v. Watkins, 154 Tex. 206, 275 S.W.2d 477 (Tex.Sup.1955). If reasonable minds may differ as to whether a particular zoning ordinance has a substantial relationship to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare, no clear abuse of discretion is shown, and the ordinance must stand as a valid exercise of the City's police power. Hunt v. City of San Antonio, 462 S.W.2d 536 (Tex.Sup.1971). A change of conditions is not a necessary prerequisite to rezoning "if the rezoning ordinance bears a reasonable relation to the general welfare and to an orderly plan of zoning development." City of University Park v. Benners, 485 S.W.2d 773 (Tex.Sup.1972).
Presumptions of the validity of amendatory zoning ordinances disappear, however, where the facts show that a city has singled out a tract of land on the basis of changed conditions which do not "bear any substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare." Weaver v. Ham, 149 Tex. 309, 232 S.W.2d 704, 709 (Tex.Sup.1950). The Supreme Court of Texas traditionally has condemned, as spot zoning, an ordinance where a small area is singled out for different treatment from that accorded to similar surrounding land without any showing of justifiable changes in conditions, especially when such preferential treatment is given in an amendatory zoning ordinance which is contrary to a long established comprehensive zoning plan. Thompson v. City of Palestine, supra.
Defendants first contend that this is not a spot zoning case. In the alternative, they assert that if the ordinance did provide for spot zoning, that it is based on changed conditions which bear a substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare of the community. Spot zoning, in essence, is the arbitrary violation of a community's comprehensive zoning plan. Comprehensive zoning implies the establishment of areas which group the various phases of community life. Therefore, it is vital that areas for industrial, commercial, single-family housing and multi-family housing uses be segregated. This is so in order to insure that living conditions become and remain reasonably predictable. When small areas, whether in the middle of or on the perimeter of a zoned area are rezoned, a hodgepodge of unrelated uses can easily result, which, in effect, would destroy the comprehensive zoning plan.
A common element present in all cases which have condemned spot zoning is that in each case a small area (in relation to all of the area affected by rezoning) was singled out for treatment which was different from that of surrounding land. See McWhorter v. City of Winnsboro, 525 S.W.2d 701 (Tex.Civ.App. Tyler 1975, writ ref'd n. r. e.). Spot zoning is legal only if justified by a change in conditions which affect the area in question, or where there is evidence of definite community need because of changed conditions which bear a substantial relation to the public health, safety, morals or general welfare which cannot reasonably be met otherwise. Thompson v. City of Palestine, supra; Weaver v. Ham, supra.
Undoubtedly, in our opinion, the amendatory ordinance involved in this appeal constitutes, as a matter of law, spot zoning because it singles out the land in question for different treatment from that accorded to similar...
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City of Pharr v. Tippitt
...a judgment declaring a zoning ordinance invalid. The district court upheld the ordinance, but the court of civil appeals nullified it. 600 S.W.2d 951. We reverse the court of civil appeals judgment and affirm that of the trial Mayfair Minerals, Inc. is the owner of 10.1 acres of land which ......