Town of Coralville v. Great Lakes Pipe Line Co.

• Decision Date: 15 August 1961
• Docket Number: No. 50052,50052
• Parties: TOWN OF CORALVILLE, Iowa, Appellant, v. GREAT LAKES PIPE LINE COMPANY, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 375

110 N.W.2d 375

253 Iowa 23

TOWN OF CORALVILLE, Iowa, Appellant, v. GREAT LAKES PIPE LINE COMPANY, Appellee.

No. 50052.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Aug. 15, 1961.

Rehearing Denied Oct. 17, 1961.

Clearman, Oehler & Barker, Iowa City, for appellant.

D. C. Nolan, Iowa City, and Evans, Duncan, Jones, Hughes & Riley, Des Moines, for appellee.

SNELL, Justice.

Plaintiff, town of Coralville, brought this action in district court under the provisions of section 362.26 of the Code, I.C.A., for annexation of approximately 46.4 acres of land owned by defendant adjacent to and contiguous with the northern boundary of the town. It was stipulated that all the procedural requirements of subsections 1 through 4, inclusive, of the governing statute had been fulfilled.

The trial court, in a decree entered prior to our pronouncement in City of Cedar Rapids v. Cox, Iowa, 108 N.W.2d 253, denied annexation. The town appealed.

Town of Coralville is a municipal corporation. It had a population in 1950 of 950 and an estimated population at time of trial of about 2,000. Geography and arterial highways somewhat limit the directions in which it can extend its corporate area.

Seven separate annexation proceedings describing tracts of various sizes around the perimeter of the town were commenced in 1957. All except the tract of defendant involved herein have been annexed. Other land east of defendant's land has been annexed by petition and resolution. Defendant, Great Lakes Pipe Line Company, owns land within the corporate limits just south of the north boundary. Defendant's property sought to be annexed is adjacent and immediately north. Defendant's property, both within and without the corporate limits, is operated together as one unit.

Defendant's property is referred to as a tank farm. It is a terminal, storage, distribution and forwarding station for liquid petroleum products. The property within the town, on which are located 17 storage tanks, has been so operated for many years. The 46.4 acres involved were acquired in 1951 and have been integrated into the operational unit. Located thereon are 10 storage tanks, a loading rack and office buildings. The entire area under use is enclosed by a cyclone fence topped by barbed wire, with entrance gates locked when not in use. The area is floodlighted and is never unattended.

Defendant has its own equipment for control of petroleum fires. Water is furnished to Coralville residents under a franchise with a privately-owned system. Defendant, at its own expense under contract with the water company, made connection with the water system. Rates are controlled by the town through the franchise. Defendant's need for water is for convenience of its employees and not industrial. The town sanitary sewer is a collecting system connected, by contract, with the Iowa City Treatment Plant. Under contract and payment of a fee, defendant's buildings are connected to the sewer system. Defendant discharges no industrial waste into the system, and its sewer requirements are limited. There is no garbage. Such junk and refuse as accumulates is from that part of the terminal within the town limits.

Defendant's property is strictly industrial. No one lives thereon.

Defendant says it has no need for any municipal services not presently enjoyed and that the town has failed to make an affirmative showing that it is capable of extending into such territory substantial municipal services and benefits not heretofore enjoyed.

I. We have recently emphasized that the wisdom of an annexation proposal is not within the scope of judicial discretion. We note, however, that here we find a situation that is unique, if not unusual. To one unfamiliar with the haphazard development of our taxing system, it would be hard to explain way an industrial installation operated as one unit by one owner, enclosed by a fence, should be partly in and partly outside the corporate limits. Obligations, rights, benefits and services depend upon the surveyor's line and not upon the integrated use of the property.

II. Coralville has doubled in population in 10 years. Defendant's operation has also grown. Public services and utilities have kept pace. The fact that part of the services are furnished by contract or under franchise rather than by municipal ownership is immaterial. They are municipal services.

III. The town furnishes the usual and customary municipal services. It has a police force of three full-time employees, receiving the same pay as Iowa City officers in comparable grades. A police car fully equipped as an ambulance has two-way radio contact with Iowa City. The town has full radio coverage through the Iowa City station.

The town has a volunteer fire department with a chief, assistant chief and 26 men. The fire department has a new truck with a 500 gallon per minute, two stage pumper and carries 500 gallons of water with adequate hose. The town also houses, has the use of and furnishes personnel for the operation of a township fire truck. The town also has special foam equipment for fighting special types of fires such as petroleum fires.

The town has three full-time street employees operating a maintainer, two tractors and three trucks.

The town, at its own expense, has extended and expanded capacity of water mains so as to provide better service and adequate water pressure. The territory sought to be annexed is served by the town sewer system.

The town has a storm sewer system for drainage of surface water.

There is a Planning and Zoning Commission and a Recreation Commission with a full time employee, a public park, a town hall, a clerk, a sanitation officer, an engineer, treasurer, and an attorney performing the usual services, and a franchise with the Iowa Electric Light and Power Company.

It appears clear that the town is capable of extending into the territory proposed to be annexed the usual and customary municipal services and benefits in the same manner and to the same extent as to the property presently within the corporate limits. It also appears that such services are substantial and are adequate for all ordinary needs of a community the size of Coralville, including the property sought to be annexed.

A street and highway maintenance problem of some consequence exists at present. Vehicles traveling to and from defendant's property traverse the town streets. First Avenue runs north and south past the eastern boundary of the area sought to be annexed. Property to the east of First Avenue is within the corporate limits, and the east half of First Avenue is accordingly a town street. Defendant's property sought to be annexed to the west of First Avenue is not now within the corporate limits, so the west half of First Avenue passes defendant's property as a county road. Entrance to defendant's property is through gates on First Avenue. The dividing line, being down the center of First Avenue, results in the west half of the road past defendant's property being a county road depending upon the county for maintenance and the east half away from defendant's property being a town street with responsibility for maintenance in the town. The administrative and maintenance problems incident to such divided responsibility are obvious. The proposed annexation would convent all of this street into a town street and place the responsibility for the maintenance thereof on the town.

IV. It appearing that plaintiff is capable of extending into the territory proposed to be annexed the usual municipal services and the same services rendered to the territory now within the corporate limits, the real issue involves the meaning of 'benefits not theretofore enjoyed * * *, so that the proposed annexation will not result merely in increasing the revenue from taxation.'

Our most recent pronouncements in the field of municipal annexation are found in State ex rel. Mercer v. Incorporated Town of Crestwood, 248 Iowa 627, 80 N.W.2d 489, and 81 N.W.2d 452; City of Des Moines v. Lampart, 248 Iowa 1032, 82 N.W.2d 720; and City of Cedar Rapids v. Cox, Iowa, 108 N.W.2d 253.

In the Mercer case, supra, it is held that the functions of the court are restricted to the findings of fact concerning two matters: 'First; 'That the municipal corporation is capable of extending into such territory substantial municipal services and benefits not theretofore enjoyed by such territory, so that the proposed annexation will not result merely in increasing the revenue from taxation of such municipal corporation.' Second; (the...