Section 3. Any Person Violating This Ordinance Shall Be Deemed Guilty

of misdemeanor and punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five, or more than one hundred dollars, or by imprisonment of not more than ninety days, or both fine and imprisonment. Each day of the violation of the prohibition herein contained shall be construed as a separate offense.

4. OFFENSIVE USES OF LAND NOT SUBJECT TO MUNICIPAL REGULATION

There remains a class of occupation which imperils neither the safety nor health of the community and yet is very damaging to the value of land as a place of residence. A business that produces little or no smoke or noise and no odors that are unhealthful may, because of the appearance of the buildings which it occupies or the class of persons which it attracts, be an undesirable neighbor. This is the sort of occupation that the developers of a high class residential district exclude by restrictions in the deed, but the police power has never been extended to preventing or removing structures or occupations which merely disfigure the city’s physical aspect or which bring together people who may be socially uncongenial. It is not held to be within the scope of the police power to guard the amenities of life.

The Missouri legislature of 1891 gave authority to municipalities to exclude by ordinance “the institution and maintenance of any business avocation on the property fronting on boulevards ... and to establish a building line to which all buildings and structures shall conform.” Ordinances based on this legislation were tested in several cases in the supreme court and in each case declared unconstitutional on the ground that the legislation deprived owners of property without due process of law and made no provision for compensation. The theory was advanced by attorneys for the city that the ordinance was passed in pursuance of the police power, but this suggestion was held thoroughly untenable by the court.

An ordinance of the city of Baltimore prohibited the erection of new buildings without a permit, and directed that the permit should not be granted unless in the judgment of the appellate tax court “the size, general character, and appearance of the building will conform to the general character of the buildings previously erected in the locality and will not tend to depreciate the value of the surrounding improved and unimproved property.” In a well considered decision this ordinance was held ultra vires.

An ordinance of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, prohibited the building of houses, shanties, huts, or tents between the road and sea without a special permit, except such as are known as summer houses for shade only, and “all houses built without a permit shall be nuisances.” The road mentioned in the ordinance was much used by pleasure vehicles, and on the land side were many expensive houses. The ordinance was obviously designed to preserve the view of the gulf from the road and prevent the obstruction of the cool winds from the water. The court found the ordinance unconstitutional, and in discussing the theory that it could be defended in the exercise of the police power, said, “There is scarcely a suggestion that the object of the ordinance is other than to enhance the beauty of the street.”

Offenses to the sense of smell and to the sense of hearing are enjoined on the ground of health, but the medical fraternity has not convinced the legal fraternity that offenses to the sense of sight are damaging to the health. It should be a very interesting task to frame a medico-legal brief which would convince a reputable tribunal of the necessity to give a broader meaning to the phrase “public welfare,” and we should have a decision which would be as influential as the case of Welch vs. Swasey in Massachusetts. One of the greatest authorities on police power says: “It is conceded that the police power is adequate to restrain offensive noises and odors. A similar protection to the eye, it is conceived, would not establish a new principle but carry a recognized principle to further application.” The same authority recognized the difficulty of administering such an extension of the power as applied to the elimination of objectionable signs: “Such regulation would have to define what signs are prohibited and some test would have to be discovered by which to discriminate that which is merely unesthetic from that which is so offensive as to fall under the police power, since the prohibition of all advertising signs would be out of the question.”

Some forms of advertising which are now allowed in practically every city in the United States could be enjoined on the ground of endangering public health. The custom, for instance, of covering the whole side or front of a building with advertisements pictured or lettered in electric lights might be enjoined as an injury to health, since at least the glare interferes with the sleep of occupants of buildings facing such a sign. But, generally speaking, the decisions on this phase of the general subject of the police power as illustrated by the bill-board cases which we are about to discuss are conclusive that whatever may be the effect on the judiciary from the increase in esthetic sentiment, the great consensus of opinion is at present against the exercise of the police power to restrain that form of use of land which is merely offensive to the sense of sight.

BILL-BOARDS. The bill-board evil is the classic illustration of offensiveness to even the most poorly nourished artistic sense. Several ordinances of one kind or another have been attempted to legislate it out of existence. Park commissions have attempted to protect the neighborhood of parks and parkways by an ordinance of exclusion. But every drastic measure has been successfully thwarted by repeated court decisions.

A very recent Missouri case has been generally understood to announce a different rule and to uphold the prohibition of bill-boards as an exercise of the police power. The case arose under an ordinance of the city of St. Louis of which the following are the essential provisions:

1. No bill-board hereafter erected shall exceed fourteen feet in height above the ground.

2. All bill-boards shall have an open space at the bottom of at least four feet.

3. No bill-board shall exceed five hundred feet in area.

4. No bill-board shall approach the street line nearer than fifteen feet or the side line of the lot on which it stands nearer than six feet.

Besides these structural requirements there seems to be a discrimination in the matter of license fees against structures used as bill-boards; for although no fees are charged for fences which may be used for bill posting, a fee is imposed for the erection of bill-boards; and although a fee of only $1.00 is charged for the alteration or erection of buildings costing less than $1,000, a fee of $100 is charged for a bill-board 50 feet long, the total cost of which may not exceed $100. The same disproportionate charges are made for the erection or alteration of signs on the top of buildings.

The ordinance was attacked on every possible ground: First, as a taking of property without due process of law; second, as denying the equal protection of the laws by prescribing restrictions against structures on which advertising is displayed, but not against similar ones structurally as objectionable,—in other words, discriminating against the kind of use to which a structure is put; third, as taking property without compensation and without public necessity. The case was first heard before a justice of the supreme court, and his finding that the ordinance was a reasonable exercise of the police power was upheld by the full bench with two judges dissenting. To the contention raised by counsel for the bill-board company that the statute discriminates, the court replied that there can be no discrimination, since bill-boards are of necessity in a class by themselves because of their temporary character and consequent cheap and insecure structure. In distinguishing them from other structures on the top of buildings, like tanks, chimneys, towers, poles, and so forth, the court says: “Should they (bill-boards) be required to be constructed with the same permanency (as tanks, towers, and so forth), that fact alone would destroy their commercial value and put them out of business, for the cost of construction would greatly exceed the amount of income that would be derived therefrom,” It is the finding that bill-boards are “nuisances in character” distinguished from all other apparently similar structures by their cheapness and insecurity that distinguishes the Missouri decision from those which have held similar ordinances invalid as an unwarranted exercise of the police power.

The Missouri case finds something more dangerous in bill-boards than the paper on them containing the advertisement. The decision amounts to this: All bill-boards are likely to fall; to construct them safely would involve a cost which would prohibit their erection; all bill-boards are likely to harbor nuisances; all bill-boards increase the fire hazard. One form of regulation would be to require construction specifications, but it is just as reasonable to move them back from the lot line and so limit their height that the danger from them is removed. It is also reasonable to require an open space at the bottom and at the sides of the lot so as to check nuisances that tend to grow up behind the barrier and to decrease the risk of fire.

This St. Louis case has been taken to the supreme court of the United States on a writ of error, but it goes up with the advantage to the city that the highest state court has found it a valid exercise of the police power. The supreme court is slow to overthrow such a finding and the chance is good for establishing a precedent irrespective of the reasoning of the court. The decision can not be cited as sustaining the exercise of the police power for esthetic purposes, but the charge is well founded that esthetic considerations are poorly concealed behind the pretext of guarding the safety, morals, and health of the people.

As a method of largely suppressing the bill-board evil it is believed that the drastic St. Louis ordinance will be effective, since the burden put upon the maintenance of such structures will be likely to take away much of the profit that they bring. But it is very doubtful whether the St. Louis method will be generally followed as a method of suppressing the evil. Certainly in those jurisdictions where a careful consideration has been given to ordinances of like character, it is not to be expected that there will be different findings than heretofore. In cities where the question is new, it is not likely that the courts will follow the Missouri court in saying that bill-boards can not be safely erected because of their temporary character. Until the public’s good taste, its sense of orderliness, harmony, and beauty, are ranked more nearly on the same plane as its health, safety, and morals, or until the doctors have established a positive injury to health through the sense of vision, we may expect no protection against unsightly structures through the exercise of the police power.

OTHER METHODS OF CONTROL

Although the degree of control over intensive and offensive uses of land which is desirable in the development of a city plan can not be attained under the exercise of the police power, the municipality may accomplish some of the same purposes by purchasing or taking under eminent domain an easement in the land which it is desired to control. If the decision in the Copley Square case, as usually interpreted, discussed in Chapter I, is good law and is generally followed, it would support the recent legislation in Missouri, in Indiana and Colorado, which excludes objectionable occupations from land fronting on parks and boulevards by purchasing or condemning the right of the owners to use their land for such purposes. The constitutionality of the acts of Massachusetts authorizing the establishment of building lines beyond which no building can be constructed has never been questioned; but in all such legislation provision is made for compensating land owners for damages. An ordinance has been introduced in Denver to provide for taking such easements in land adjacent to parks and parkways by condemnation and for assessing the cost of the taking upon the district benefited. This idea is suggestive of large possibilities but has not as yet been tested.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the police power is constantly being held to justify interference with the use of private property. The only limit to such interference is a judicial determination that a specific ordinance is not a reasonable means of protecting the safety, health, and morals of the community. It is for the legislative body to determine in the first instance the reasonableness of the means. It is a sound judicial principle, carried exceptionally far in the Missouri case cited on page 162, that courts will be slow to overthrow the determination of the legislature.

FOOTNOTES:

See Appendix, p. 242.

See pp. 146 ff. for further discussion of this law.

House Bill No. 81, 12th Session. (The bill was not reached in committee.)

For text of the acts, see Appendix, pp. 221, 223.

For text of the decisions, see Appendix, pp. 219, 226 ff.

State vs. Berdetta, 73 Ind. 185.

Affirmed in 194 N. Y. 19.

Charter of City of Dallas, Sect. 5, Par. 12. Charter of Detroit, Chap. 7, Sect. 44. Charter of Portland, Ore., Art. 4, Sect. 73, Par. 27.

Massachusetts Revised Laws, Chapter 75, Section 91.

161 Cal. 220.

163 Cal. 457.

Also see Acts of Minnesota, 1913, Chaps. 98 and 420; Acts of New York, 1913, Chap. 774; Acts of Wisconsin, 1913. Chap. 743.

For further references see Veiller, Lawrence: A Model Housing Law, pp. 62 ff. See also “Protecting Residential Districts,” a paper read by Lawrence Veiller at the Sixth National Conference on City Planning, Toronto, 1914.

For cases see St. Louis vs. Hill, 116 Mo. 527. St. Louis vs. Dorr, 145 Mo. 466.

Bostock vs. Sams, 95 Md. 400.

Questini vs. Bay St. Louis, 64 Miss. 483.

Freund, Ernst: The Police Power, p. 166. Chicago, Callaghan and Co., 1904.

Appendix, p. 246.

St. Louis Gunning Advertising Co. vs. St. Louis.

For text see Appendix, p. 219.