Headley v. City of Rochester

The plaintiff since. 1918 has been the owner of premises in the city of Rochester which are bounded on the south by East avenue and on the west by North Goodman street. East avenue and North Goodman street have been, for more than twenty years, public streets or highways. In 1931, pursuant to article 3 of the General City Law (Cons. Laws, ch. 21), the Council of the city of Rochester passed an ordinance which amended, changed and added to an official map or plan previously adopted by the Council “ so as to correct and revise said established Official Map or Plan and to lay out new streets and highways and to widen existing highways.” In that map or plan the southerly twenty-five feet of plaintiff’s said prem

By chapter 690 of the Laws of 1926 the Legislature added article 3, entitled “ Official Maps and Planning Boards,” to the General City Law. That article empowers the legislative body of every city to establish an official map or plan of the city showing the streets, highways and parks theretofore laid out and established by law. (§ 26.) It empowers such legislative body “whenever and as often as it may deem it for the public interest, to change or add to the official map or plan of the city so as to lay out new streets, highways or parks, or to widen or close existing streets, highways or parks.” (§ 29.) It further empowers the legislative body of the city to create a planning board of five members and it requires that before making any addition or change in an official map in accordance with section 29 “ the matter shall be referred to the planning board for report thereon.” The planning board is given “power and authority to make such investigations, maps and reports and recommendations in connection therewith relating to the planning and development of the city as to it seems desirable.” (§31.)

The adoption or revision of a general map pursuant to the provisions of the General City Law does not have the effect of divesting the title of the owner of land in the bed of a street as shown on the map; it does not have the effect of placing upon the city a duty to begin, presently,

The mere adoption of a general plan or map showing streets and parks to be laid out or widened in the future, without acquisition by the city of title to the land in the bed of the street, can be of little benefit to the public if the development of the land abutting upon and in the bed of the proposed streets proceeds in a haphazard way, without taking into account the general plan adopted and, especially, if permanent buildings are erected on the land in the bed of the proposed street which would hamper its acquisition or use for its intended purpose. So long as the owners of parcels of land which lie partly in the bed of streets shown on such a map are free to place permanent buildings in the bed of a proposed street and to provide private ways and approaches which have no relation to the proposed system of public streets, the integrity of the plan may be destroyed by the haphazard or even malicious development of one parcel or tract to the injury of other owners who may have developed their own tracts in a manner which conforms to the general map or plan.

A statutory requirement that a city must acquire title to the land in the bed of the streets shown on the general map or plan, and provide compensation for the land taken, would create practical difficulties which would drastically limit, if, indeed, they did not render illusory, any power conferred upon the city to adopt a general map or plan which will make provision for streets which will be needed only if present anticipations of the future development of the city are realized. On the other hand, to leave the land in private ownership, and, without compensation to

Not every restriction placed by authority of the State upon the use of property for the general welfare of the State, without payment of compensation, constitutes a deprivation of property without due process of law. This court has sustained a reasonable restriction upon the height of signs on roofs, saying: “ Compensation for such interference with and restriction in the use of property

In Junius Constr. Corp. v. Cohen ( 257 N. Y. 393 , 399), though the appellant attempted to question the constitutionality of section 35 of the General City Law, we placed our decision on other grounds and said: “ We find it unnecessary to determine whether section 35 with its restrictions upon the enjoyment of the land within the boundaries of a mapped street is an unconstitutional interference with vested rights of property. (Cf. on the one hand, Forster v. Scott, 136 N. Y. 577 ; Matter of Wall Street, 17 Barb. 617 , 636; People ex rel. N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R. Co. v. Priest, 206 N. Y. 274 ; Edwards v. Bruorton, 184 Mass. 529 ; and on the other hand, Matter of City of New York, 196 N. Y. 255 ; Matter of Wulfsohn v. Burden, 241 N. Y. 288 ; Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365 .) ” Though the section has been on the statute books since 1926, its validity has not been challenged in any other case in this court. It is perhaps not without significance that during these years no owner has claimed that the statute has actually interfered with his enjoyment of the land, or has prevented him from obtaining a permit to improve the land in a manner which he deemed desirable.

The plaintiff in this case, too, makes no such claim. The complaint alleges only the conclusion of the pleader that by reason of the filing of the ordinance and map or plan “ the plaintiff has been, and is, deprived of his

Regardless of the form of action in which relief is sought, the courts will not declare a statute unconstitutional unless and until such relief is necessary for the protection of some right of the suitor guaranteed by the Constitution. " The duty of this court, as of every judicial tribunal, is limited to determining rights of persons or of property, which are actually controverted in the particular case before it.” (California v. San Pablo & Tulare R. R. Co., 149 U. S. 308 , 314.) “ To complain of a ruling one must

be made the victim of it. One cannot invoke to defeat a law an apprehension of what might be done under it and, which if done, might not receive judicial approval.” (Lehon V. City of Atlanta, 242 u. S. 53, 56.)

The courts have sustained, as a proper exercise of the

A statute cannot have the effect of depriving a person of his liberty or property unless it prevents such person from doing an act which he desires to do or diminishes the enjoyment or profit which he would otherwise derive from his property, (Cf. cases collated in the separate opinion of Mr. Justice Brandeis in Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288 , at pp. 345-349.) There are approximately nineteen thousand feet in the plot owned by the plaintiff. The single dwelling house upon it is ninety-five years old and is now in course of demolition. By its adoption of the general map or plan, the city has given notice that at some future time, if

The opinion of the Appellate Division leans heavily upon Forster v. Scott ( 136 N. Y. 677 ) as authority for its decision. The analogy between the cases is quite illusory and the principles here involved are not touched by that case. There the city of New York, in accordance with the provisions of chapter 681 of the Laws of 1886, filed a map of a proposed street or avenue which as the court pointed out “ covers the entire lot ” of the plaintiff. The statute provided that “ no compensation shall be allowed for any building, erection or construction which at any time, subsequent to the filing of the maps, plans, or profiles mentioned in section six hundred and seventy-two of the act, may be built, erected or placed in part or

. The court there said: “An encumbrance is said to import every right to or interest in the land, which may subsist in another, to the diminution of the value of the land, but consistent with the power to pass the fee by a conveyance.” (p. 582.) If the statute was valid the land “ could not be used for building purposes, except at the risk to the owner of losing the cost of the building at some time in the future.” (p. 583.) The value of the land was derived from its availability for building purposes and that value would be drastically reduced /if the owner could not obtain compensation for the improvements put upon the land. Since these facts were/' stipulated it could hardly

be doubted that the statute attempted to create a public

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Every element which led the court to find in that case that the filing of the map, in accordance with the statute there challenged, created, if the statute were valid, an incumbrance upon the property, is wanting in the case now under review. The statute here does not purport to give to the city the right to appropriate the plaintiff’s land or any part of it for less than the full value of the lands with the improvements thereon erected at the time of such appropriation. The only restrictions upon the use of any part of the plaintiff’s land while title thereto remains in the plaintiff result indirectly from the conditions which the statute attaches to the grant thereafter of a permit to erect a building upon the small portion of plaintiff’s land which, as shown on the map, will he in the bed of the street on which the plaintiff’s land abuts, if or when at some time in the future the city may desire to carry out its intention to widen the street. Since it is affirmatively shown that the plaintiff has no plans at present for the use of the premises it seems plain that what this court said and decided in the case of Forster v. Scott (supra) cannot possibly be regarded as any precedent for the grant of a judgment declaring the statute invalid, unless from the facts here presented the court as matter of law would be-constrained to draw the inference that the conditions which the Legislature has sought to impose upon the grant of a permit for the use of a small part of plaintiff’s land, creates a limitation upon its use “ to the diminution of the value of the land.”

No inference of law, indeed no inference of fact, that the attempted condition has affected or will affect the use to which the plaintiff’s land will be put or has diminished the value of the land, may be drawn from the stipu

Solicitude for the protection of the rights of private property against encroachment by government for a supposed public benefit does not justify the courts in declaring invalid a public law which serves a public purpose, because ten years after it has been on the statute

The judgment of the Appellate Division should be reversed and that of the Special Term affirmed, with costs in this court and in the Appellate Division.

Crane, Ch. J., O’Brien, Hubbs, Crouch, Loughran and Finch, JJ., concur.

Judgment accordingly.