Town of West Hartford v. Talcott

• Decision Date: 03 July 1951
• Citation: 82 A.2d 351,138 Conn. 82
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: TOWN OF WEST HARTFORD v. TALCOTT et al. Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut

Page 351

82 A.2d 351

138 Conn. 82

TOWN OF WEST HARTFORD v. TALCOTT et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

July 3, 1951.

Anson T. McCook, Hartford, Nicholas B. Eddy, Hartford, for the appellants defendants.

Harrison D. Schofield, Hartford, for the appellee plaintiff.

Before BROWN, C. J., JENNINGS, BALDWIN, and O'SULLIVAN, JJ., and KING, Superior Court Judge.

BROWN, Chief Justice.

The plaintiff town, in the exercise of its function as a school district, brought two petitions to the Superior Court, each for the appointment of a committee to assess just damages for the taking of land for school purposes. Of the two parcels involved, one, referred to hereinafter as the Emeline Talcott tract, has an area of 1.36 acres; the other, referred to as the Elizabeth W. Talcott tract, has an area of 7.26 acres. The two parcels adjoin each other, and the cases, which involve the same issues, were tried together. The record in the former action only has been printed, but it is stipulated that both cases present the same questions of law and that the judgment rendered by this court upon the record presented may also be entered in the other case. The trial court found for the plaintiff and entered an order appointing a committee to proceed in accordance with § 7181 of the General Statutes. The defendants have appealed.

The salient facts found by the court, which are not subject to material correction, may be thus summarized: The plaintiff owns 3.2 acres of land on the northwesterly corner of New Britain Avenue and Quaker Lane South in West Hartford. The tract is bounded easterly by Quaker Lane South for about 865 feet and northerly by the plaintiff's Beachland Park for 244 feet, and tapers to a width of about 137 feet on New Britain Avenue at the south. The Talcott Junior High School occupies approximately the center of the tract, with about an acre to the south and a like area to the north occupied by the school's playgrounds. Emeline Talcott owns the property abutting the school land on the west. Her parcel fronts 118 feet on New Britain Avenue and is bounded on the east 817 feet by the school land and on the north by the park. Approximately the northerly three-quarters of this parcel is the Emeline Talcott tract which the plaintiff seeks to condemn. The Elizabeth W. Talcott tract which it also seeks to take lies just to the west and is bounded northerly 695 feet by the park and easterly about 535 feet by the Emeline Talcott tract. The two pieces together form roughly an 8.62-acre rectangle bounded northerly by the park, easterly by the school land, southerly by remaining land of the defendants and westerly by that of various owners. The southerly line of this combined tract is a continuous east to west line substantially parallel to and 218 feet north of the north line of New Britain Avenue. The entire frontage of the defendants' land on New Britain Avenue is zoned for business to within about sixty feet of the area sought to be condemned. The south side of the avenue is also zoned for business, as well as the easterly side of Quaker Lane South in the vicinity of the intersection of these two main heavily traveled thoroughfares.

The Talcott Junior High School represents an investment of over $234,000. Its present playgrounds are too small for the proper physical education of the pupils but are usable for informal games or other purposes connected with the operation of the school. The plaintiff seeks to condemn the defendants' combined 8.62-acre tract to provide space for the erection of an addition to the school building and for playing fields to be used in connection with courses of instruction in the school. On October 8, 1948, the plaintiff's town manager was authorized by the town council to negotiate with the defendants for the acquisition of the tract. Before this, members of the board of education, the superintendent of schools and several real estate agents had carried on negotiations with the defendants without success. As a result, the parties started to negotiate for a slightly smaller piece, in which a strip fifty feet wide along the southerly side was not included. The 8.62-acre tract more accurately satisfies the plaintiff's needs for expansion of the school building and playgrounds, as is further set forth below.

At no time during the negotiations did the purchase price present the primary difficulty, but a major factor in their breakdown was the plaintiff's refusal to guarantee to the defendants that its zoning authority would extend the business zone a number of feet to the north to include an additional portion of their remaining land. The vote to acquire the full 8.62-acre tract was duly adopted by the town council, but with a limitation as to the amount to be offered to the owners. The parties have not agreed that all of the land to be taken is necessary, nor what price is to be paid. On February 24, 1949, the town council voted that its corporation counsel be authorized and directed to institute condemnation for the purpose of acquiring for school purposes the two pieces comprising the 8.62-acre tract.

The most accurate method of forecasting school requirements indicates that the pressent enrolment of 296 in the Talcott School will reach 315 in 1951, 580 in 1957, and ultimately 800. Under the modern theory of maximum classes of thirty pupils each, the present facilities will accommodate a total of 320. Unless the expansion of the school's physical plant, which has been under consideration for several years, is carried out immediately, it will be necessary to abandon the present school and build a new junior high school to serve the southerly part of the town. The contemplated expansion, if made, will suffice for the next ten years. To permit proper instruction for the increasing enrolment, the present building ought to be enlarged by increasing the size of the gymnasium and of the auditorium and by adding a new boiler room, ten classrooms and eleven other rooms for related purposes. The addition so required will more than double the size of the building. By reason of the need of devoting the vacant land of the present property to parking and other incidental purposes, it affords no space for the addition. The rear of the present building is within a few feet of the easterly boundary of the 8.62-acre tract, which is the most available and suitable place for the addition.

The importance of physical education in the curriculum makes it reasonably necessary to provide a playfield adjacent to the school building. This will require sufficient land to the west of the addition to furnish adequate baseball and softball fields and additional space for less formal games, so that all of these games can be played simultaneously during many periods of the school day. While not absolutely essential, it is highly desirable to have for baseball a field 360 feet square with a catcher's area 60 feet in radius to the rear of home plate and to locate the diamond so that the line from home plate to second base is in a generally east and west direction. A field with the length of the foul lines reduced from 300 to 250 feet would meet the minimum requirements of the rules. A softball field should be 250 feet square plus a catcher's area and a place for a backstop. At the northwest corner of the 8.62-acre tract the surface of the land falls off into a gully twenty feet deep through which a stream runs. The expense of bringing this land to grade for use as part of the playing fields would be prohibitive. To provide space for a 350-foot baseball field without filling the gully, or, if it is filled, for a properly oriented diamond, a proper softball field and the required area for informal games, the entire 8.62-acre tract is needed. While either the limiting of the baseball field to the 250-foot dimension or the filling of the gully would render it possible to lay out the baseball and softball fields without overlapping and without encroaching on the 50-foot strip along the south side of the 8.62-acre tract, not enough space would remain for the informal games. Although the plaintiff maintains Beachland Park for the recreation of the public generally, it is not a part of the educational program. Because of the terrain, the park is difficult of access from the school except by way of Quaker Lane South, its surface in the area near the school is so low and wet that it is not suitable for development as a playfield, and its baseball diamond is too far away to be utilized. Plans for the use of the properties sought to be taken for an addition to the school and for a playfield, along the lines stated above, were carefully prepared by the principal and the superintendent of schools, were approved by the board of education and formed the basis of the action of the town council in voting to acquire the property.

Section 7175 of the General Statutes, in connection with § 7176, provides that a town 'may take land which has been fixed upon as a site, or...