Town of Fairview v. City of McKinney
| Decision Date | 04 December 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. 05-06-01691-CV.,05-06-01691-CV. |
| Citation | 271 S.W.3d 461 |
| Parties | TOWN OF FAIRVIEW, Texas, Appellant v. CITY OF McKINNEY, Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Daniel R. Barrett, E. Allen Taylor, Douglas W. Black, Fredrick Quast, Tim G. Sralla, Taylor, Olson, Adkins, Sralla & Elam, L.L.P., Fort Worth, for Appellant.
Mark E. Goldstucker, Mark S. Houser, Brown & Hofmeister, LLP, Richardson, for Appellee.
Before Justices MORRIS, WRIGHT, and MOSELEY.
The City of McKinney sued the Town of Fairview in 2000 seeking a declaratory judgment and injunction regarding the validity of several Fairview annexation ordinances. Fairview counterclaimed for declaratory relief challenging several of McKinney's annexation ordinances. The ordinances at issue date back as far as 1958.
The parties settled a portion of their dispute through an agreed judgment (which the trial court severed and made final), leaving three tracts of land in dispute. Thereafter, and after a non-jury trial, the trial court signed a judgment in favor of McKinney. Fairview appeals.
The outcome of this appeal hinges on the effects of three municipal ordinances: McKinney's annexation ordinance 472, passed in 1958; McKinney's ordinance 478, passed in 1959, that attempted to "disannex" a 600-foot-wide strip of land located within the territory described in ordinance 472 but also located within Fairview's city limits; and Fairview's annexation ordinance 70-05-4847, passed in 1970. The disputed tracts are located some distance away from the boundaries described in all these ordinances. However, the effects of these ordinances impact the existence and extent of each city's extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) and, as a result, their respective jurisdictional claims over the three tracts.
The trial court's judgment states "ordinance 472 establishes the boundary on which McKinney's [ETJ] is based and is valid." The judgment also states the three tracts "are within the jurisdictional authority of [McKinney] and all annexation ordinances attempting to annex said tracts that are inconsistent with this Final Judgment are void."
Fairview's first issue asserts, for two reasons, that ordinance 472 is void as a matter of law and, as a result, the disputed tracts are not within McKinney's city limits or ETJ. First, Fairview contends the "vault copy" version of ordinance 472 contains a boundary description that does not close, and that under McKinney's city charter this vault copy version controls as a matter of law over a "boundary-file" version of the ordinance, which contains a boundary description that closes. Second, Fairview asserts ordinance 472 is void as a matter of law because its boundary line included the 600-foot-wide strip, and thus encroached on Fairview's city limits. In connection with this argument, Fairview asserts that ordinance 478—the disannexation ordinance—does not cure the defect in the annexation ordinance.
Fairview's second issue asserts that even if ordinance 472 is valid, it did not extend McKinney's ETJ to cover all of the disputed tracts. Fairview asserts at least a portion of the tracts is within Fairview's city limits or ETJ by virtue of its ordinance 70-05-4847, which, although void when adopted, was later validated by the 1979 validation act back to the date the ordinance was enacted. See Act of May 25, 1979, 66th Leg., R.S., ch. 473, 1979 Tex. Gen. Laws 1043.
For the reasons set forth herein, we conclude the trial court was not prohibited from relying on the boundary-file version of ordinance 472—which contains a valid description of the property McKinney sought to annex. We also conclude ordinance 472 is void in part, namely, to the extent it attempted to annex the 600-foot strip. However, we conclude ordinance 472 was effective to annex the rest of the territory described therein and that, under the circumstances presented here, upholding ordinance 472 in part does not constitute a judicial exercise of the legislative function.
We also conclude that Fairview's ordinance 70-05-4847, which attempted to annex a noncontiguous tract south of the disputed tracts, was void up to the effective date of the 1979 validation statute. By that time, however, McKinney had already acquired ETJ over the disputed tracts, and thus the ordinance did not extend Fairview's ETJ to include a portion of the tracts. Thus, we conclude the trial court did not err by determining McKinney has authority over the entirety of the three tracts.
We modify the trial court's judgment to reflect the partial validity of ordinance 472. As modified, we affirm the trial court's judgment.
McKinney is a home-rule city; its charter was adopted in 1913. In May 1958, Fairview incorporated as a general law municipality located some distance to the south of McKinney. Fairview's northern boundary line included a strip of land, 600 feet wide, that extended north about 1,300 feet along what is now State Highway 5.
On November 24, 1958, McKinney adopted ordinance 472, amending its city charter to set new boundary limits as described in the ordinance. Ordinance 472 sought to expand McKinney's boundary in all directions, including to the south towards Fairview. However, the territory described in ordinance 472 included the 600-foot-wide strip along Highway 5 that was already a part of Fairview. Some two months later, on January 19, 1959, McKinney adopted ordinance 478, which described the 600-foot-wide strip by metes and bounds and declared that it was "disannexed" from McKinney. As Fairview points out, however, ordinance 478 did not otherwise restate McKinney's boundaries.
On August 23, 1963, the Municipal Annexation Act1 became effective. The Act created the concept of extraterritorial jurisdiction and restricted a municipality's ability to annex property to property in its ETJ or property it owned. See TEX. LOC. GOV'T CODE ANN. § 43.051.2 A municipality's ETJ is the unincorporated area contiguous to, and located within a certain distance of, those boundaries. See TEX. LOC. GOV'T CODE ANN. § 42.021(1), (2). That distance, and thus the size of a municipality's ETJ, is based on the municipality's population. Id. At the times relevant to this case, McKinney's ETJ was one mile and Fairview's ETJ was one-half mile around their respective city limits. Based on the territory described in ordinance 472 (minus the 600-foot-wide strip that was already a part of Fairview), McKinney's ETJ in 1963 would include portions of the disputed tracts. Fairview's ETJ at that time did not include any part of the disputed tracts.3
On February 3, 1970, Fairview adopted ordinance 70-05-4847, which sought to annex 221 acres located south of and adjacent to the three disputed tracts. It is undisputed that, at that time, the 221-acre tract was located outside of Fairview's ETJ and was not contiguous to its city limits. Thus, Fairview admits this ordinance was void when adopted. However, as mentioned previously, Fairview contends the legislature's 1979 validation act validated ordinance 70-05-4847 from its inception in February 1970. If Fairview's contention is correct, this ordinance had the effect of extending Fairview's ETJ to cover a portion of the disputed tracts.
Beginning in March of 1970, McKinney adopted several other annexation ordinances. These ordinances were based on the premise that McKinney's pre-existing boundaries were as set forth in ordinance 472, as modified by ordinance 478.4 Unless Fairview is correct that the 1979 validation act validated its ordinance 70-05-4847 from its inception in 1970, McKinney's additional annexations extended its ETJ to include all of the disputed tracts at a time before Fairview's ETJ would have extended to include a portion of them.
In 1999, McKinney adopted an ordinance purporting to annex two of the three disputed tracts. McKinney filed this suit in October 2000, seeking a declaratory judgment and injunction regarding the validity of several of Fairview's annexation ordinances. Fairview counterclaimed for declaratory relief, challenging several of McKinney's annexation ordinances.
The parties entered into an agreed judgment setting the boundary line between the two municipalities and resolving all boundary issues between them, except for the determination of the parties' jurisdiction over the three contiguous tracts of land located near the agreed borders and all claims necessary for that determination. The trial court signed the agreed judgment and severed that judgment from this proceeding, making it final.
Thereafter, and after a non-jury trial, the trial court signed a final judgment in favor of McKinney, as described above. Fairview's motions for new trial and to modify the judgment were overruled by operation of law. Fairview appeals.
The trial court did not file any findings of fact, and none of the parties requested the court to do so. Thus, we assume the trial court impliedly made all findings necessary to support its judgment. See Worford v. Stamper, 801 S.W.2d 108, 109 (Tex. 1990). We affirm the judgment if it can be upheld on any legal theory that finds support in the evidence. Id. Fairview does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to support the trial court's judgment. It challenges only the legal results flowing from the facts.
Fairview's first issue asserts the trial court erred by ruling in favor of McKinney because McKinney's claim to the disputed tracts is based on ordinance 472, which Fairview contends is void as a matter of law for two reasons. Fairview describes the questions presented in its first issue as questions of law subject to de novo review.
Fairview's first challenge to ordinance 472 is that the metes and bounds description of the annexed property set forth in the ordinance does not close. See Alexander Oil Co. v. City of Seguin, 825 S.W.2d 434, 438...
To continue reading
Request your trial