Murrell v. Wolff

408 S.W.2d 842
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedNovember 14, 1966
Docket52128
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 408 S.W.2d 842 (Murrell v. Wolff) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Murrell v. Wolff, 408 S.W.2d 842 (Mo. 1966).

Opinion

HOUSER, Commissioner.

Twelve individuals, owners of single-family dwellings, and the trustees of a subdivision in the City of Ballwin sued the city, its building commissioner and Mayer Land Company to' invalidate Zoning Ordinance No. 250, nullify a building permit for the construction by Mayer of a multiple dwelling on a certain tract of land, enjoin the city and building commissioner from issuing building permits for the construction of buildings on the land in question not permitted in an “A” Residential District, enjoin Mayer from erecting any four-family multiple dwellings thereon and to require Mayer to remove therefrom one four-family multiple dwelling already built. Mayer sought to invalidate as to Mayer Ordinance No. 496 prohibiting multiple dwellings in “C” Commercial Districts. The final judgment of the trial court in effect sustained the validity of both ordinances and the building permit. Plaintiffs appealed and Mayer appealed. The loss to Mayer in the event plaintiffs succeed in obtaining the relief demanded would be in excess of $15,000 and therefore this Court has jurisdiction.

The City of Ballwin adopted its first zoning ordinance in 1957. Preliminarily the board of aldermen by ordinance created and appointed a zoning commission pursuant to § 89.070 1 and thereafter passed *845 Zoning Ordinance No. 175, establishing four districts: “A” Residential; “B” Residential; “C” Commercial and “D” Light Industrial. The regulations for “A” Residential District authorized the use of buildings, among others, for the purpose of “Dwellings,” which term was defined elsewhere as “Any building, or portion thereof, which is designed or used exclusively for residential purposes.” The use regulations for “C” Commercial Districts provided for any use of buildings permitted in an “A” Residential District. No provision was made for multiple dwellings in Ordinance No. 175, other than the recognition given multiple dwelllings in the section on “C” Commercial District Regulations, which provided that “When a lot is improved with a single family dwelling, two family dwelling or a multiple dwelling, * * * the intensity of use regulations shall be the same as those required in ‘B’ Residential District.”

Mayer Land Company develops and builds subdivisions and shopping centers. In the fall of 1959 Mayer, through real estate agents and acting through a separate corporation, assembled and took options on approximately 600 acres of land mostly within the city limits of Ballwin for the purpose of developing a total community to consist of two subdivisions for private, single-family dwellings, a group of apartment buildings and a shopping center, with a reservation of space for schools and churches. It was to be centered around the intersection of Clayton Road and Kehrs Mill Road. The subdivision to be named Claymont was to lie southeast and that to be named Mayfair was to lie northwest of the intersection. The shopping center was to occupy approximately 11 acres and was proposed to lie in the northwest quarter of the intersection, facing both roads. Just north of the shopping center the county water tower property was located, and north of the water tower and west of the shopping center, with Kehrs Mill Road as its eastern boundary, another 11-acre tract was to be set aside for approximately 35 garden-type four-family luxury apartment houses, as a buffer zone between the commercial and residential areas. The 11-acre tract was suitable for apartments but not for single-family residences because of the large water tank nearby and was not good for commercial purposes because the water company property divided it from the shopping center. To build the type of home on the size of lot contemplated it was necessary to rezone the subdivision land from “A” Residential to “B” Residential and to rezone the shopping center land and the 11-acre tract for apartments from “A” Residential to “C” Commercial. Maps were prepared illustrating and demonstrating this project on the total community approach. The various portions of the proposal were laid out geographically. Before filing an application for rezoning Mayer had two or three conferences with the mayor, board of aldermen and city attorney at which the city officials were given to understand that “the entire project was one project, that it was indivisible”; that Mayer had to have a lot production of three to an acre; that a shopping center was necessary for convenience, and an apartment complex was necessary to create a buffer zone between the shopping center and the residential areas. It was explained that it was necessary to rezone the 22 acres commercial, 11 acres of which would be for the shopping center and the other 11 acres for luxury apartments. At the time Mayer approached the city officials his purchasing company did not own but had options to purchase the 600 acres. After the matter was fully explained to the officials Mayer made application for rezoning. As an inducement to the city Mayer by letter agreed that if the rezoning ordinances were passed the city would be paid $100 for each acre of land contained in any approved subdivision plat offered for record, the money to be used for public park purposes. On February 8, 1960 the board of aldermen passed Ordinance No. 249 ~hang *846 ing the classification of part of the land from “A” to “B” Residential and Ordinance No. 250 changing the classification of the 22 acres from “A” Residential to “C” Commercial. Both ordinances recited that due notice of public hearing on the application for change of zoning had been given according to law and ordinance and that a public hearing had been held before the board of aldermen. The petition for change of zoning was not referred to a zoning commission before the passage of these rezoning ordinances. No hearings were held by a zoning commission and no zoning commission made any report to the board, for the reason that there was no active zoning commission in existence on February 8, 1960. Ordinances passed in 1952 and 1957 had created temporary zoning commissions but apparently they ceased to function after the commissioners appointed on those occasions made their reports. In reliance on the rezoning Mayer purchased the lands for “about a million and a half dollars.” The 11-acre tract for the apartment house complex was part of a larger tract of 134 acres which cost $345,000. Mayer would not have purchased these lands if the ordinances had failed of passage. After acquiring the acreage Mayer proceeded to build “Clay-mont” subdivision and the shopping center. The next phase of the plan, before building the “Mayfair” subdivision, called for the commencement of the apartment project on 11 of the 22 acres rezoned “C” Commercial. This envisioned approximately thirty-five apartment houses, each two stories in height, accommodating four families, to be rented at from $175 to $225 per month for each apartment. In the latter part of 1963, when Mayer was preparing to apply for a building permit for the first of the apartment buildings, the mayor informed Herman Mayer that the city during the past year had passed an amendatory zoning ordinance which for the first time established a separate category for multiple dwellings, and advised Mayer to obtain a rezoning of the 11 acres from “C” Commercial to Multiple Dwelling before applying for the building permit. The mayor referred to Ordinance No. 356, passed December 27, 1962, which provided that in Multiple Dwelling Districts a building could be used for any use permitted in any of the Residential District Regulations.

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Bluebook (online)
408 S.W.2d 842, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/murrell-v-wolff-mo-1966.