Wambat Realty Corp. v. State

• Decision Date: 31 March 1977
• Citation: 362 N.E.2d 581,41 N.Y.2d 490,393 N.Y.S.2d 949
• Parties: , 362 N.E.2d 581, 7 Envtl. L. Rep. 20,363 WAMBAT REALTY CORP., Appellant, v. STATE of New York et al., Respondents.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 949

393 N.Y.S.2d 949

41 N.Y.2d 490, 362 N.E.2d 581, 7

Envtl. L. Rep. 20,363

WAMBAT REALTY CORP., Appellant, v. STATE of New York et al., Respondents.

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 31, 1977.

Robert Rosenthal, Monsey, and Bradford H. Brinton, Keeseville, for appellant.

Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen. (Murray Susswein, New York City, Ruth Kessler Toch and Stanley Fishman, Albany, of counsel), for respondents.

N. Earle Evans, Jr., and John S. Ferguson, Syracuse, for the Town of Altamont and others, amici curiae.

BREITEL, Chief Judge.

This is a declaratory judgment action brought against the State, the agency, and related officials to challenge the Adirondack Park Agency Act (Executive Law, art. 27) as violative of the home rule protection afforded local governments in article IX of the Constitution. Plaintiff, private owner and would-be developer of more than 2,200 acres of land in the Adirondack Park region, appeals directly from a judgment at Special Term declaring the act valid on summary judgment (see N.Y.Const. art. VI, § 3, subd. b, par. (2); CPLR 5601, subd. (b), par. 2).

The issue is whether comprehensive zoning and planning legislation enacted by the State Legislature to ensure preservation and development of the resources of the Adirondack Park region, without re-enactment at a second session, is invalid because it encroaches upon the zoning and planning powers of local governments.

There are two subsidiary issues. The first is of long standing in the area of home rule: whether the subject matter of a challenged act, in the instant case the future of a cherished regional park, is a matter of State concern. Put another way, the first subsidiary issue is whether the subject matter relates to 'other than the property, affairs or government of a local government' and is thus within the powers which the home rule article expressly reserves to the State (see N.Y.Const. art. IX, § 3, subd. (a), par. (3)). The second subsidiary issue is engendered by the specific provisions of the home rule article adopted in 1963, namely, whether, in directing enactment of a Statute of Local Governments and in requiring that powers granted under that statute be diminished only by legislation enacted and approved in two successive legislative sessions, the home rule article has qualified the Legislature's power to act even in areas otherwise of recognized State concern.

There should be an affirmance. To categorize as a matter of purely local concern the future of the forests, open spaces, and natural resources of the vast Adirondack Park region would doubtless offend aesthetic, ecological, and conservational principles. But more important, such a categorization would give a substantially more expansive meaning to the phrase 'property, affairs or government' of a local governme than has been accorded it in a long line of cases interpreting successive amendments to the home rule article. Nor is there any support for the proposition that powers granted under the Statute of Local Governments may not be encroached upon or even superseded by ordinary legislative enactment where matters of State concern are involved. The double enactment procedure required by article IX for withdrawal or restriction of powers granted under the statute was intended to afford localities protection from hasty and ill-considered legislative judgments. It was not, however, designed as a rigid impenetrable barrier to ordinary legislative enactments in matters of State concern.

The land owned by plaintiff Wambat Realty is situated in the Town of Black Brook, one of numerous local governments within the area known as the Adirondack Park (see ECL 9--0101, subd. 1). Although Wambat's proposed land development project, 'Valmont Village', was permissible under the pre-existing zoning and planning resolutions of the town, in 1971 the Adirondack Park Agency Act was adopted (L.1971, ch. 706). Under the act plaintiff was required to seek approval for its project from the Adirondack Park Agency, created by the act to fashion a plan for future use of the public and private lands within the park region (Executive Law, §§ 803, 804, 809, subd. 2). Shortly after receiving a 'Notice of Project Application Incompletion' from the agency, Wambat instituted this action for a declaratory judgment challenging the act's validity.

Of particular importance to plaintiff's contention are the 1973 amendments to the act (L.1973, ch. 348), which include adoption of the Adirondack Park land use and development plan and authorization for the filing of an official plan map (Executive Law, § 805, subds. 1, 2). Plaintiff argues that these provisions, which set forth a comprehensive zoning and planning program for all of the public and private lands within the park, together with other restrictions on local land use contained in the act, unconstitutionally deprive the Town of Black Brook of its own zoning and planning powers. A similar action had been brought earlier by the Town of Black Brook, but disposition on the merits was delayed by objections to the town's standing to question, on constitutional grounds, an act of the State Legislature with respect to local powers (see Town of Black Brook v. State of New York, 41 N.Y.2d 486, 393 N.Y.S.2d 946, 362 N.E.2d 579, decided herewith).

The fulcrum for plaintiff's contention is section 2 of article IX of the Constitution, which directs the Legislature to enact 'a statute of local governments granting to local governments powers including but not limited to those of local legislation and administration in addition to the powers vested in them by this article. A power granted in such statute may be repealed, diminished, impaired or suspended only by enactme of a statute by the legislature with the approval of the governor at its regular session in one calendar year and the re-enactment and approval of such statute in the following calendar year' (subd. (b), par. (1)). This constitutional direction, part of the 1963 amendment to the entire home rule article, was implemented by the Legislature in 1964 (L.1964, ch. 205).

Key to plaintiff's contention are subdivisions 6 and 7 of section 10 of the statute, which grant to cities, villages, and towns 'the power to adopt, amend and repeal zoning regulations' and to all local governments the 'power to perform comprehensive or other planning work relating to (their) jurisdiction.' Plaintiff urges that since the Adirondack Park Agency Act diminishes, if it does not totally negate, the Town of Black Brook's zoning and planning powers, powers expressly granted to the town under the quoted provisions of the Statute of Local Governments, the Agency Act to be valid must have been enacted and re-enacted in two successive legislative sessions.

Defendants, on the other hand, counter that the home rule article's grant of powers to local governments is not absolute, but qualified. In pertinent part, section 3 of article IX provides:

'(a) Except as expressly provided, nothing in this article shall restrict or impair any power of the legislature in relation to:

'(3) Matters other than the property, affairs or government of a local government.'

The reservation of power is largely repeated in section 11 of the Statute of Local Governments (subd. 4). Defendants' response to Wambat's contention is, in short, that the subject matter of the Agency Act relates to 'other than the property, affairs or government of a local government.'

The term 'property, affairs or government' of a local government, as constitutional terminology in defining home rule powers, is not new, but dates from 1894 (see N.Y.Const. of 1894, art. XII, § 2, as amd. 1923, §§ 2, 4; N.Y.Const. of 1938, art. IX, § 11). The terminology, it is true, has been the subject of recurring controversy (see, e.g., Admiral Realty Co. v. City of New York, 206 N.Y. 110, 139--140, 99 N.E. 241, 249--250; Adler v. Deegan, 241 N.Y. 467, 471, 167 N.E. 705, 706, mot. for rearg. den. 252 N.Y. 574, 170 N.E. 148; County of Orange v. Metropolitan Transp. Auth., 71 Misc.2d 691, 703, 337 N.Y.S.2d 178, 193, aff'd 39 A.D.2d 839, 332 N.Y.S.2d 381; see, generally, New York State Constitutional Convention Committee (1938), Problems Relating to Home Rule and Local Government, vol. XI, pp. 34--43). Emerging, however, from that controversy is one definitive principle: that a proper concern of the State may also touch upon local concerns does not mean that the State may not freely legislate with respect to such concerns (see Adler v. Deegan, 251 N.Y. 467, 491, 167 N.E. 705, 713 (concurring opn. Cardozo, Ch. J.), Supra; Town of Brookhaven v. Parr Co. of Suffolk, 76 Misc.2d 378, 380--381, 350 N.Y.S.2d 529, 532, mod. on other grounds 47 A.D.2d 554, 363 N.Y.S.2d 640). Restated, the phrase 'property, affairs or government' of a locality has not served to paralyze the State Legislature where to a substantial degree, in depth or extent, a matter of State concern is involved (see Manes v. Goldin, 400 F.Supp. 23, 27--28 (Judd, J.), affd. 423 U.S. 1068, 96 S.Ct. 851, 47 L.Ed.2d 80).

Thus, in the decisively enlightening case of Adler v. Deegan, the court rejected a home rule challenge to the then Multiple Dwelling Law even though the statute treated only with housing in New York City (251 N.Y. 467, 477--478, 167 N.E. 705, 708---709, 709, Supra). So, too, in Bugeja v. City of New York, it was held that there was no home rule impediment to the Legislature's authorization for the issuance of serial bonds to cover New York City's pension and retirement liabilities (24 A.D.2d 151, 152, 266 N.Y.S.2d 80, 81 (Hopkins, J.), affd. 17 N.Y.2d 606, 268 N.Y.S.2d 564, 215 N.E.2d 684). And, more recently, notwithstanding its encroachment upon village zoning powers, the Urban Development Corporation statute was held to have been validly enacted in Floyd v. New York State Urban Dev. Corp., 33 N.E.2d 1, 6--7, 347 N.Y.S.2d 161, 163--164, 300 N.E.2d 704, 705--706.

It mattered not that in...