Worcester Knitting Realty Co. v. Worcester Housing Authority

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Writing for the Court: Before WILKINS; WHITTEMORE
• Citation: Worcester Knitting Realty Co. v. Worcester Housing Authority, 335 Mass. 19, 138 N.E.2d 356 (Mass. 1956)
• Decision Date: 19 November 1956
• Parties: WORCESTER KNITTING REALTY CO. v. WORCESTER HOUSING AUTHORITY et al.

Page 356

138 N.E.2d 356

335 Mass. 19

WORCESTER KNITTING REALTY CO. v. WORCESTER HOUSING AUTHORITY et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

Argued Sept. 25, 1956.

Decided Nov. 19, 1956.

George H. Mason, Worcester (James A. Crotty, Worcester, and John P. Dunn, Northboro, with him), for plaintiff.

Lewis H. Weinstein, Boston (Harry J. Meleski, City Solicitor, and Matthew R. McCann, Jr., worcester, with him), for defendant.

Before WILKINS, C. J., and SPALDING, WILLIAMS, COUNIHAN and WHITTEMORE, JJ.

WHITTEMORE, Justice.

The plaintiff's bill of complaint seeks to restrain action under the land assembly and redevelopment plan instituted in 1953 by the Worcester Housing Authority under G.L. (Ter.Ed.) c. 121, §§ 26JJ-26MM (see St.1946, c. 574, § 1; St.1953, c. 647, §§ 18, 19), which was considered and upheld by this court in Bowker v. Worcester, 334 Mass. ----, 136 N.E.2d 208. In the Superior Court the demurrer and plea of the defendants to the amended bill of complaint were heard together and were sustained. The plaintiff seeks to prevail notwithstanding the holding of the Bowker case, and the recent cases therein referred to, for that, as the plaintiff contends, there are in the bill sufficient allegations of specific facts to show that there is a real issue to be tried of whether the requisite determinations by the public agencies involved were made in good faith for the purpose of the statute or were arbitrary and capricious. See Stockus v. Boston Housing Authority, 304 Mass. 507, 511, 24 N.E.2d 333. There was no error.

The plea avers that the record of administrative action shows the validity of the plan and is a bar. The parties stipulated that the record as pleaded is true.

The plaintiff attacks the finding of the Worcester Housing Authority that the project area is substandard and decadent within the meaning of those words in the statute. G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 121, § 26J (see St.1946, c. 574, § 1; St.1953, c. 647, § 11). The plaintiff seeks to overcome the apparent purpose of the plan, and our holding in the Bowker case, 334 Mass. ----, 136 N.E.2d 213, that, 'on its face, [it] shows that its dominant purpose is slum clearance' with allegations which we summarize as follows: the project area includes contiguous, but separable, subareas which contain no residential property and are far removed from any buildings which could be called substandard or decadent; the status, character and uses of the buildings in the area are varied; any buildings which could be called substandard or decadent are few in number; a large number of the buildings are in good condition, well built and fully occupied, some are apartment houses commanding high rent; large parts of the area are used for parking lots; two integrated subareas separated from the residences in the project area by streets are included solely to improve the prospect of commercial development of the area by furnishing access from Main Street, the principal business street of the city of Worcester; and the avowed purposes of the housing authority have been other than the permitted statutory purpose, that is, the declared aims are to improve traffic, public transportation, parking, recreational and community facilities and assist in developing a traffic artery, to expand and redevelop commercial facilities and expand the trading area, to recreate and increase land values, bring about the construction of new and higher valued improvements and thereby to increase tax revenue, and help in the development of the entire city by redistribution of land uses. The bill specifies the areas which are allegedly improperly included, and describes the buildings and the use of the land therein.

The underlying determinations of the authority are such that, viewing the project area as a whole, it cannot be said that it was arbitrary or capricious to find, based on them, that it is a substandard or substandard and decadent area, within the statutory definitions, ¹ or that the making of such findings suggests bad faith. Bowker v. Worcester, 334 Mass. ----, 136 N.E.2d 208.

Nor could it be held on the record and all the facts alleged by the plaintiff that the inclusion in the area of the allegedly nonresidential, nondecadent, segregated subareas, so that it might be considered as a whole, is evidence of bad faith or capricious or arbitrary action. We are not concerned with the significance of these allegations if they were coupled with such an averment of actual bad faith as was suggested by way of illustration in Despatchers' Cafe, Inc., v. Somerville Housing Authority, 332 Mass. 259, 263-264, 124 N.E.2d 528. The summary assertions of bad faith and arbitrary and capricious action add nothing to the bill. Stockus v. Boston Housing Authority, 304 Mass. 507, 511, 24 N.E.2d 333. The determination of the boundaries of the area is for the administrative agencies and may not be retried in the courts, Bowker v. Worcester, 334 Mass. ----, 136 N.E.2d 208, and cases cited.

The declared purposes of the statute would in many cases be thwarted if the authority must exclude from the redevelopment every adjacent parcel to which, considered by itself, the statutory definitions may not apply. This consideration is as important as applied to the peripheries as for the center of a project area. Otherwise in many cases the new development could not be...