Agenda - Planning Commission - 01/05/1999

Home

Z.B. December 24, 1998 Page 3 plied to all special uses without regard to religion. Nor was the ordinance an unconstitutional prior restraint on religious speech. Regulating land use had nothing to do with religion, and the special use ordi- nance carried out its purpose in a manner that applied generally to all special uses. The ordinance understandably gave the board discretion to apply general criteria to special permit applications because of the potential effect on public health and safety created by uses ranging from schools and churches to hospi- tals, crematoria, and landfills. see also: Employme~t Division, Del2artme~t of Human Resources v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 110 S. Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed. 2d 876 (1990). see also: Kunz v. New York, 340 U.S. 290, 71 S. Ct. 312, 95 L.Ed. 280 (1951). Taking m Advertiser claims city took its property by phasing out nonconforming billboards Citatio~: Adams Outdoor Advertising v. City of East Lansing, Court of Appeals of Michigan, No. 200655 (1998) Adams Outdoor Advertising owned billboards in East Lansing, Mich. It owned five rooftop billboards and seven freestanding signs on property else- where in the city. In 1975 the city adopted a comprehensive sign code that made all of Adams' previously lawful signs nonconforming. The code prohibited rooftop signs, and Adams could apparently keep only four of the freestanding signs without violating the cOde. It gave sign owners until May 1, 1987, to eliminate noncon- forming signs. In early 1987 the city warned Adams it would be cited for code violations if it didn't bring its nonconforming signs up to code before the May 1 deadline. Adams sued the city, claiming the sign code constituted a taking. The company's expert estimated that if Adams could have only four signs, its losses, capitalized at a 10 percent rate of return, would be $300,000. The expert said Adams' losses from the two places where it had rooftop signs would be $57,500 and $55,000, respectively. The city claimed constitutional takings principles didn't apply because Adams' billboards were personal property. The city said that even if takings principles did apply, there was no taking because the sign code was a valid use of its police powers and Adams was given a reasonable amount of time to comply with the sign code and to recover its investment. The court found the code, as applied to Adams' rooftop signs, amounted to a taking because it deprived Adams of ali economically viable use of its prop- erty. The court found the code amounted to a taking of the freestanding signs as well because it was Adams' property interest in its leaseholds, not the value of the signs themselves, that the city "took." Reducing the capitalization rate from 10 percent to 7 percent, the court found Adams' loss from the freestanding billboards was $20(),(}00, and its losses from the rooftop signs were $40,250 and $38,500.