Arrowsmith v. City of Rochester

Appeal from a judgment (denominated order) of Supreme Court, Monroe County (Galloway, J.), entered May 6, 2002, which, inter alia, granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment and denied plaintiffs’ cross motion seeking partial summary judgment and preliminary injunctive relief.

It is hereby ordered that the judgment so appealed from be and the same hereby is unanimously modified on the law by vacating the provision dismissing the complaint and as modified the judgment is affirmed without costs.

Memorandum: Plaintiffs, property owners in the City of Rochester (City), commenced this declaratory judgment action challenging section 90-25 of the City Code insofar as it requires them to apply for renewal of certificates of occupancy for their residential rental properties every five years. Supreme Court properly granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment and denied plaintiffs’ cross motion seeking partial summary judgment and preliminary injunctive relief. Defendant established as a matter of law that none of the nine causes of action in the complaint has merit, and plaintiffs failed to raise a triable issue of fact (see CPLR 3212 [b]). While the court properly declared that section 90-25 is constitutional, however, it erred in dismissing the complaint (see Boyd v Allstate Life Ins. Co. of N.Y., 267 AD2d 1038 , 1039 [1999]). We therefore modify the judgment by vacating the provision dismissing the complaint.

The challenged ordinance, like all legislative enactments, enjoys an “exceedingly strong presumption of constitutionality’ (Lighthouse Shores v Town of Islip, 41 NY2d 7 , 11 [1976]), and plaintiffs failed to submit proof to rebut that presumption. Contrary to plaintiffs’ contention, section 90-25 is “sufficiently precise to satisfy the requirements of due process” (Wegman’s Food Mkts. v State of New York, 76 AD2d 95 , 101 [1980]). Contrary to the further contention of plaintiffs, the ordinance, considered in conjunction with section 1-9 of the City Charter,