Sharon Realty Co. v. Westlake

90 Ohio Law. Abs. 175, 1961 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 360
CourtCourt of Common Pleas of Ohio, Franklin County, Civil Division
DecidedJune 20, 1961
DocketNo. 210053
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 90 Ohio Law. Abs. 175 (Sharon Realty Co. v. Westlake) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Common Pleas of Ohio, Franklin County, Civil Division primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sharon Realty Co. v. Westlake, 90 Ohio Law. Abs. 175, 1961 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 360 (Ohio Super. Ct. 1961).

Opinion

Sater, J.

This is a taxpayer’s suit brought against sixteen named officials and representatives of the City of Columbus to enjoin the City from misapplying municipal funds and abusing corporate municipal powers. The case is submitted on the petition and answer, a stipulation of agreed facts, various exhibits numbered A through V, and voluminous thoughtfully prepared briefs.

It is stipulated that plaintiff is a taxpayer. It is beyond question that it brings this action rightfully, properly and lawfully under section 74 of the City’s charter buttressed, if necessary, by Sections 733.56 to 733.61, both inclusive, Revised Code. The defendants are the City’s Mayor Westlake, the seven members of its Council, the seven members of the Slum Clearance and Rehabilitation Commission, and the Commissions’ director.

Close to ten years ago, the City, through its proper officials undertook studies covering five widely diversified phases of civic improvement, both municipal and metropolitan. From their studies came a “Master Plan.” Unfortunately this Plan is not in evidence before us; but from reference to it in Ordinance 1518-54 which is Exhibit B herein, it may reasonably be concluded that that Plan embraced substantially more than City Slum areas.

On November 22, 1954, City Council enacted Ordinance 1518-54. This Ordinance adopted five reports, under separate headings, of its said officials as “Base Plans for the Master Plan.” Again, none of these reports is in evidence but by giving the reports, Plans and Ordinance the benefit of every doubt, two of the reports, numbers 1 and 4, seem to encompass the area which has come to be familiarly known as the Market-Mohawk Area. This area now is bounded roughly on the north by Chapel Street, on the west by South Third Street, on the south by East Fulton Street, and on the east by South Grant Avenue; but from the northeast corner of the rectangle there [178]*178was excluded the properties, site and area of Grant Hospital and from the central-western side of the area (see Exhibits F, G, II, I, J, K and T) there was also excluded later, if not from the start, a large tract of land running eastwardly from South Third Street between East Rich and East Noble Street, a distance of two city blocks. We wonder in vain whether this tract was ever a part of the original studies or of the Master Plan; and if it was, when and why it was dropped. No other area, certainly, that might fall within these Base Plans is directly involved in or affected by this litigation.

Eighteen months later on May 21, 1956, and presumably with only these nebulous reports and Base Plans before it, Council adopted a Resolution, Exhibit Q herein, calling for a vote at a special election on the issuance of $5,000,000.00 in bonds with a complementary tax levy to be the City’s matching share of a federal project to clear four slum areas, one of which was the Market-Mohawk area. Exhibit R is the ballot that was presented to the voters in September, 1956. Both Resolution and ballot referred to Ordinance 1518-54 but neither described either reports or Base Plans or set out even by metes and bounds the Market-Mohawk area or any other involved area; to the contrary they named four areas completely different in at least nomenclature from what is found in Ordinance 1518-54, above, ■ making it almost impossible for us to determine whether the ballot conforms to the original reports, to the Master Plan, to the Base Plans for the Master Plan, or to any or all of them. Because time was of the essence to secure federal participation, i. e., three-fold greater financial largess, the Resolution was passed as an emergency measure; the election was held; and the bond issue was ápproved. It should be carefully noted, however, that neither Ordinance 1518-54 nor Resolution nor ballot reserved to City Council the power to revise or amend any of these plans for area rehabilitation; that came later after the comfort of liberal bond money had been assured by the voting public. Certainly the ballot must be construed in the light of the Resolution and Ordinance that preceded it, not by what might follow.

Nineteen months later on June 2, 1958, City Ordinance 818-58 was enacted. Among other things this Ordinance pinned [179]*179down precisely the Market-Mohawk area, gave it a federal title “UR Ohio 4-2,” as well as a local title, sometimes ‘.‘Market-Mohawk Urban Renewal Project” and sometimes “Redevelopment Plan for the Project Area, dated May 8, 1958 (which incidentally is not in evidence before us either) entitled ‘Market-Mohawk Redevelopment Plan — Code 307,’ ” referred, in passing to Ordinance No. 1518-54 but not to its Plan or the maps in evidence that were prepared sometime between the two ordinances, and set out a redevelopment plan for the entire area consisting inter alia of residential zones with “Tot Lots,” commercial-retail and commercial-office zones with buildings of limited height, all zones being accompanied with building set-back requirements and with off-street parking and loading areas. On page 493, col. 1, No. 4, of this Ordinance, it was found and determined ‘ ‘ that the above-mentioned Redevelopment Plan will afford maximum opportunity, consistent with the sound needs of the city as a whole, for the redevelopment of the area by private enterprise”; this bent to redevelopment by private enterprise is found repeatedly and unequivocally throughout the Ordinance and in the Slum Clearance Code (Exhibit P).

The map No. 2 referred to in this Ordinance is, as far as we can ascertain, Exhibit T. Then at the end of the Ordinance comes the novel reservation that this Plan “may be modified at any time by the City Council of the city of Columbus.” Judiciously used, this reservation of power could inure to the benefit of all; used otherwise it could be the lever for amending or revising the Redevelopment Plan completely out of existence, either in one fell swoop or by slow erosion of the Plan by blocks, quarter-blocks or segments thereof. Certainly if this reservation of power is to stand, it must be used in strict compliance with section 21 of the City Charter which reads:

“No ordinance or resolution or section thereof shall be revised or amended, unless the new ordinance or resolution contains the entire ordinance or resolution or section revised or amended, and a repeal of the original ordinance, resolution, section or sections so amended.”

On December 22,1960, there was enacted Ordinance 1427-60, which is Exhibit D herein. It mentions the two preceding ordinances by number but without making any effort to comply [180]*180with the charter section jnst quoted. This ordinance amended Section 7 of Ordinance 818-58, above, insofar as Section 7 relates to area zones previously planned for commercial uses. These amendments include increasing the maximum building height from 125 feet to 200 feet, eliminate set-back requirements in some areas, change some off-street parking and loading facility requirements, and affirm the right of the (presumably still, private) developer to relocate at his own expense an underground utility with the consent and approval of the controlling City officials and the public utility itself. Other seemingly small or insignificant amendments were made, but the key to all of these changes and amendments is found in the second paragraph of this Ordinance: “Whereas, the State of Ohio desires to purchase this land to erect a new state office building” etc. This Ordinance was vetoed by the defendant Mayor.

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Related

Porter v. City of Oberlin
205 N.E.2d 363 (Ohio Supreme Court, 1965)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
90 Ohio Law. Abs. 175, 1961 Ohio Misc. LEXIS 360, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sharon-realty-co-v-westlake-ohctcomplfrankl-1961.