Appleby v. Delaney
Headline: Court blocks city plan that would bar private owners from filling purchased waterfront lots, holding the city cannot completely prevent landowners from making dry land though reasonable permits may be required.
Holding: The Court reversed, holding the city's refusal to allow filling under its 1916 plan impaired owners' contract rights in their water-lot deeds and that owners may fill subject to reasonable regulatory permits, not absolute prohibition.
- Stops cities from completely blocking owners from filling purchased waterfront lots.
- Affirms owners may fill subject to reasonable permits controlling time and method.
- Reverses the lower court and sends the case back for further proceedings.
Summary
Background
The dispute involves private owners who bought water lots described in their deeds as "land to be made" from the Hudson River and the City’s Dock Department, Dock Commissioner, common council, and Sinking Fund trustees. The deeds were in fee simple and included covenants to build bulkheads, wharves, streets and avenues when the city requested them, while also saying owners should not build those structures without the city’s permission. In 1916 the Dock Department adopted a different city plan and the Dock Commissioner formally refused the owners’ requests to begin filling their lots, which led the owners to seek relief claiming their contract rights were being impaired.
Reasoning
The Court addressed whether the deeds and an 1844 Sinking Fund ordinance gave owners the right to fill their lots without the city’s absolute consent. The Court relied on the language of the deeds, state-court rulings that long treated similar grants as allowing owners to fill intermediate land between streets, the city’s long conduct and the owners’ tax payments, and the ordinance’s apparent purpose to postpone city building obligations rather than to reserve to the city a power to nullify the grantees’ ownership. The Court concluded that a blanket refusal based on the city’s new plan would impair the contractual obligations the city made to the owners under the Constitution, and that the ordinance should operate as a regulatory permit power, not as an absolute bar.
Real world impact
The ruling lets private owners proceed to fill their purchased water lots rather than be completely blocked by the city’s planning scheme. The city still may require reasonable permits and supervise time and method for safety and public order. The lower court judgment is reversed and the case returned for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
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