[3] See Appendix A, III, pp. [248], [278], [279].
[4] See Appendix A, III, pp. [272], [275].
[5] See Appendix, pp. [283], [284], [290], [294].
CHAPTER I
THE PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF LAND
The ownership of land by the municipality is essential to the execution of many parts of a city plan. Certain acts of private owners which have a tendency to prevent the realization of a plan, either temporarily or for all time, may be enjoined by municipal regulation. Certain other acts in the furtherance of a plan may be induced by persuasion or compelled by administrative pressure. But at an early stage land or rights in land must be acquired for the public, and a municipality will be called upon to consider, first, whether it has a right to acquire or use land for a desired purpose; second, the methods of acquiring the land; and third, the equitable distribution of the cost of its acquisition.
THE RIGHT OF A MUNICIPALITY TO ACQUIRE AND HOLD LAND
It is well to emphasize at the start that the municipal ownership of land is subject to important limitations in the United States. It is customary to cite German examples of town planning and point out that the success of the plan is due to the large percentage of land under municipal ownership. German cities are encouraged to enter into the real estate field for the avowed purpose of checking speculation, and of reducing the over-crowding of lots, by releasing from private ownership land for building purposes. However desirable this may be in German cities, it is not permitted in any municipality in the United States.
In Germany as well as in the United States the purchase money at the disposal of any municipality is but the return from the taxation of the citizens, and the income of all can be spent only for a use that can be shared by all. German cities have reached a broad conception of a “public use” and have emphasized in this conception the rights of the community. The Constitution of the United States, on the other hand, was written when the individual was paramount in philosophy and politics, and the clause which protects the individual at the expense of the community has proved an effective check to the democratic tendencies which would substitute in importance the community for the individual. Consequently a “public use” in the United States has been more narrowly interpreted by the courts.
But new public needs have been recognized by the legislatures and sanctioned by the courts since the growth of great centers of population in the United States. To satisfy recreational needs the appropriation of the community’s money has been authorized both for the purchase and the condemnation of land for parks, boulevards, and playgrounds. It is not inconceivable that more radical needs will be recognized by legislatures and courts in the next twenty years. The need for the protection of the community against the selfishness of a few large property owners, for instance, may bring about the creation of a municipal board representing all the people of a community as a factor in the real estate market.
A municipality in the United States may become the owner of land by gift, dedication, or devise, and may use such land for any purpose whatsoever not inconsistent with the conditions of the gift, dedication, or devise. But land or rights in land can be acquired by the municipality out of public revenue only for a specific public purpose, whether the acquisition be by purchase or by appropriation under the power of eminent domain. If the city has acquired a complete ownership in land either by purchase or appropriation, it may make any use of the land so long as that use carries out some public purpose; except in the jurisdictions where it has been held that a city has only a qualified ownership which limits its right of use to the specific purpose for which the land was acquired.