Request By:
Ms. Peggy Bruce Smith, Director
Community Development Department
105 21st Street
Corbin, Kentucky 40701
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Thomas R. Emerson, Assistant Attorney General
This is in reply to your letter raising a question concerning the authority and responsibility of the city's Community Development Department under the provisions of KRS Chapter 99 to acquire and resell property.
You state that the Department of Community Development was created by the city to handle grants received from the Community Development Block Grant Program. The Department has received an appropriation of C.D.B.G.P. funds for the rehabilitation of the Ruby Street area. The Department has an urban renewal plan for Rubly Street as renewal plan for Rubly Street as required by KRS Chapter 99. The present urban renewal plan states that parcel of land states that a parcel of land will be purcased and developed with C.D.B.G.P. funds by the city with lots sold to low income families. The city cannot purchase the parcel of land in question because it has been purchased by a private developer. The city now desires to purchase a number of vacant lots in scattered locations throughout the city and resell them to low income families.
Your specific question is:
"Can the city acquire property in scattered locations from willing sellers and resell it under the neighborhood Urban Renewal Plan? Or, must the city have a city-wide Urban Renewal Plan in order to carry out the acquisition and resales?"
We assume that the city of Corbin, a city of the third class, is operating pursuant to KRS 99.330 to 99.510 and/or KRS 99.520 to 99.590 in connection with its urban renewal and redevelopment program. Since you refer to an urban renewal plan it would appear that the situation with which you are concerned involves KRS 99.520 to 99.590 as KRS 99.540 deals specifically with an "urban renewal plan."
KRS 99.530 authorizes an agency to plan and undertake urban renewal projects. An urban renewal project is defined as follows:
". . . As used in KRS 99.520 to 99.590, an urban renewal project may include undertakings and activities for the prevention of the development or spread of slums or blighted, deteriorated, or deteriorating areas or the elimination thereof, and may involve any work or undertaking for such purpose constituting a redevelopment project or any rehabilitation or conservation work, or any combination of such undertaking or work. For this purpose, 'rehabilitation or conservation work' may include (a) carrying out plans for a program of voluntary or compulsory repair and rehabilitation of buildings or other improvements; (b) acquisition of real property and demolition, removal, or rehabilitation of buildings and improvements thereon where necessary to eliminate unhealthful, unsanitary or unsafe conditions, lessen density, reduce traffic hazards, eliminate obsolete or other uses detrimental to the public welfare, or to otherwise remove or prevent the spread of blight or deterioration, or to provide land for needed public facilities; (c) installation, construction, or reconstruction of streets, utilities, parks, playgrounds, and other improvements necessary for carrying out the objectives of the urban renewal project; and (d) the disposition, for uses in accordance with the objectives of the urban renewal project, of any property or part thereof acquired in the area of such project . . ."
KRS 99.540 states that any urban renewal project undertaken shall be in accordance with an urban renewal plan for the area of the project. An urban renewal plan is defined as follows:
". . . As used in KRS 99.520 to 99.590, an 'urban renewal plan' means a plan, as it exists from time to time, for an urban renewal project, which plan (1) shall conform to the general or master plan for the community as a whole, except as provided for disaster areas; and (2) shall be sufficiently complete to indicate such land acquisition, demolition and removal of structures, redevelopment, improvements, and rehabilitation as may be proposed to be carried out in the area of the urban renewal project, zoning and planning changes, if any, land uses, maximum densities, building requirements, and the plan's relationship to definite local objectives respecting appropriate land uses, improved traffic, public transportation, public utilities, recreational and community facilities, and other public improvements. An urban renewal plan shall be prepared and approved pursuant to the same procedure as provided in KRS 99.330 to 99.510 with respect to a development plan. . ."
KRS 99.550, dealing with the power and authority of an agency relative to urban renewal, provides in part that it has power to exercise the other powers which KRS 99.310 to 99.520 confer on an agency with respect to redevelopment projects.
In 40 Am.Jur. 2d, Housing Laws, Etc. § 18 the following appears:
"The basis of selection of an area for redevelopment is its condition as a whole, rather than the condition of individual parcels and structures. In other words, redevelopment may be on an area basis, rather than a structure-by-structure basis. The condition of the whole area is controlling, for the process contemplated by the law cannot be accomplished by means of individual selection of property, but must proceed in terms of redevelopment of areas. Comprehensive planning requires that areas be considered in their entirety and not in their unseverable parts."
The court in Carroll v. City of Camden, 34 N.J. 575, 170 A.2d 417 (1961) said in part in a suit brought against the city and, among others, the Planning and Housing Redevelopment Board of Camden:
". . . Accepting plaintiff's statement that his premises are in good condition, we emphasize that the condition of the whole area is controlling for 'the process contemplated by the law cannot be accomplished by means of individual selection of property. It must proceed in terms of redevelopment of areas.' Wilson, supra, 27 N.J., at p. 395, 142 A.2d, at p. 857."
In another case, Starr v. Nashville Housing Authority, 145 F.Supp. 498 (M.D. Tenn., Nashville Div. 1956), the court said:
"The defendant, Nashville Housing Authority, as a redevelopment agency must approach the problem of the blighted parts of the community on an area, rather than on a structure by structure, basis, and it is immaterial that some particular structure within such area may be safe, sound and well kept."
In connection with an existing plan and operating under that plan the court in Prudential Building & Loan Association v. Urban Renewal & Community Development Agency, Ky., 464 S.W.2d 629 (1971), said that an urban renewal plan can be amended to include additional territory if the amendment is consistent with the purposes of the Act and if done in good faith. See also KRS 99.460 authorizing the modification of a development plan.
Having examined and considered the provisions of KRS 99.330 to 99.510 and KRS 99.520 to 99.590 relative to urban renewal and redevelopment, it is our opinion that urban renewal projects conducted pursuant to urban renewal plans contemplate the improvement and redevelopment of particular areas rather than individual structures and lots in various locations scattered throughout the city. Individual structures and lots within a defined project area, in accordance with an urban renewal plan for that particular area, could be acquired and resold but acquiring and reselling structures and lots at scattered locations and outside of specified project areas would not be permissible.