Kennett Park Development Corp. v. Westover Hills, Inc.

58 A.2d 405, 30 Del. Ch. 235, 1948 Del. Ch. LEXIS 62
CourtCourt of Chancery of Delaware
DecidedMarch 29, 1948
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 58 A.2d 405 (Kennett Park Development Corp. v. Westover Hills, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Chancery of Delaware primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kennett Park Development Corp. v. Westover Hills, Inc., 58 A.2d 405, 30 Del. Ch. 235, 1948 Del. Ch. LEXIS 62 (Del. Ct. App. 1948).

Opinion

Seitz, Vice-Chancellor:

The court must determine whether in a development known as “Westover Hills” a certain undeveloped section thereof now subject to restrictions similar to those in effect in some other sections of the development may be released from such restrictions by action of the owners of that section only.

This is the decision after the final hearing of a petition for a declaratory judgment. The petitioner, Kennett Park Development Corporation (hereinafter designated the “petitioner”) , entered into a contract on August 12, 1947, with Westover Hills, Inc. and Delaware Land Development Company (hereinafter designated collectively as the “corporate defendants”, and individually as “Westover” and “Development”) . In this contract the petitioner agreed to purchase from Westover certain tracts of land located generally in the area known as Westover Hills,1 Among the tracts of land to be purchased, there was included about 61 y2 acres of vacant land designated as Section D of Westover Hills —the land involved in this dispute. In the contract to sell, the corporate defendants covenanted to convey Section D to the petitioner free and clear of “restrictive covenants, easements, reservations, conditions, charges and other encumbrances”, except as provided in the contract itself.2

Previously (December 28, 1945), Development had conveyed Section D (except two lots) to Westover. In that deed, all the conveyed land in Section D was restricted, inter alla, against the erection of other than “private dwelling houses, each dwelling house being designed for occupancy [237]*237by a single family only”. Article VI of that deed, in so far as here pertinent, provides:

“RIGHT TO MODIFY. The covenants, agreements, conditions, reservations, restrictions and charges created and established herein for the benefit of said Westover Hills, Section D, and each lot therein, may be waived, abandoned, and terminated, modified, altered or changed as to the whole of said tract or any portion thereof with the written consent of the owners of seventy-five per centum of the lots contained in Westover Hills, Section D, and in case only a portion of said tract is intended to be affected, the written consent of the owners of seventy-five per centum of the lots in the portion to be affected shall also be secured, such waiver, abandonment, termination, modification or alteration shall become effective until the proper instrument in writing shall be executed and recorded in the Office of the Recorder of Deeds for New Castle County, Delaware, provided that this Article shall have no application so long as the party of the first part shall be the owner of sixty-five per centum of the lots in said tract.”

When it was learned by the owners of property located in the developed sections of Westover Hills that Westover, as the owner of the land in Section D of Westover Hills, proposed along with Development to amend the restrictions heretofore mentioned so as to permit the petitioner to construct garden type apartments and commercial structures costing over five million dollars on most of the land to be sold in Section D, they formed a committee to protect their rights. The committee, consisting of the individual defendants in this action, threatened to enjoin such construction on the ground that the corporate defendants did not have the right to amend, modify, release, or terminate the restrictions existing in Section D so as to permit the erection of other than single family dwellings. The individual defendants are fairly representative of the individual lot owners in Westover Hills.

Petitioner filed its petition for a declaratory judgment and prayer that this court enter a judgment declaring that the corporate defendants can lawfully at any time by proper instrument release, alter, modify, or terminate the restrictions now of record purporting to bind Section D of West-over Hills without infringing upon the legal or equitable [238]*238rights of the individual defendants, or any other owners of property in the development known as Westover Hills. The corporate defendants by their answers naturally joined in the prayer of the petition. The answer of the individual defendants says, in effect, that the corporate defendants cannot release the restrictions on Section D.

The existence of the prerequisites to the maintenance of a declaratory judgment action appear.

The petitioner and the corporate defendants contend that the language employed by the grantor to create the restrictions imposed by deed on the property in the various sections of Westover Hills, including Section D, negatives any inference that the grantor intended such restrictions to be for the benefit of the purchasers of lots in all sections of Westover Hills. The individual defendants urge to the contrary.

The petitioner and the corporate defendants also urge that the corporate defendants as the sole owners of all the land in Section D have the right to modify, amend, release, or terminate the restrictions thereon, or that they have such right by virtue of Article VI of the deed conveying Section D from Development to Westover.

The individual defendants contend that the corporate defendants cannot release the restrictions on Section D because they were imposed by the grantor with the intent to benefit all sections of Westover Hills, and are, therefore, part of a uniform residential scheme known as “Westover Hills”. They deny that the provisions of Article VI contained in the deed from Development to Westover are available to the corporate defendants because they insist that Westover merely became a substitute developer by virtue of that conveyance. Moreover, they insist that it was intended that Section D should be sold to individual lot owners, and that Article VI was, therefore, intended to apply only after more than 35% of such lots had been sold to individual purchasers. Finally, they contend that Article [239]*239VI has no application because through a mutual mistake the words “party of the first part” were used when the words “party of the second part” were intended.

I infer from the proof that if restrictions similar to those existing in the other sections are actually binding on Section D, then the petitioner will violate those restrictions by the erection of the contemplated structures in that section unless they may properly be released.

Much of the argument in the case revolves around the question as to whether or not the restrictions contained in the deed from Development to Westover in 1945 conveying Section D may be modified or rescinded by the corporate defendants. However, the individual defendants contend that a uniform residential plan as to all of Westover Hills, including Section D, came into being many years before the date of that conveyance. If this is so, then we must consider the earlier deeds restricting most of the developed portion of Westover Hills in order to resolve the contention of the individual defendants.

Before consideration may be given to the problem of ascertaining whether or not an intent to create a uniform residential plan for the benefit of the lot owners in all sections of Westover Hills can be implied from the common grantor’s course of conduct, see Tubbs v. Green, ante p -, 55 A.2d 445, we must first examine the language employed in the restricting deeds to see whether there is room for any such implication.

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Bluebook (online)
58 A.2d 405, 30 Del. Ch. 235, 1948 Del. Ch. LEXIS 62, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kennett-park-development-corp-v-westover-hills-inc-delch-1948.