Thе case before us involves the validity of special assessments levied upon certain residential lots owned by the plaintiffs. These lots abut on Sheldon road, in the city of Plymouth. Before the improvements recently made, Sheldon road had a blacktop pavement some 22 feet in width.
In the year 1956 the city of Plymouth annexed a tract of land on the west side of Sheldon road, just south of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, and immediately north and west of plaintiffs’ properties. Subsequent thereto the Western Electric Company caused to be erected upon this property, so annexed, a substantial structure which will eventually employ several hundred workmen and will be operated as a distribution and repair center for products used by the Michigan Bell Telephone Company.
In the course of the survey made by employees of the Bell Telephone Company for the purpose of determining available truck routes to and from the plant, it was discovered that Sheldon road had been posted with lightweight limitations, and it was felt that such restrictions might seriously impede the.
The cost of the project was estimated at $234,000, of which the city of Plymouth was to pay $80,000 as its share of the expenses. The proper officials of the city then determined that of such sum, 47% thereof should be borne by the city at large and the remainder, or 53%, by the properties fronting on the improvement, * residential properties being assessed at $10 per front foot, side residential lots at $5 per side foot, and commercially and industrially zoned and used properties at $13.69 per front foot, with credits to certain residential property owners of $1.50 per front foot.
We now come to the gist of the action. It was the claim of the plaintiffs that the special assessments so made were for a project not beneficial to their properties, but on the contrary detrimental thereto, and that the special assessments so made were a fraud in law entitling plaintiffs to relief in a court of equity. We are at pains to emphasize, as did the trial court, that no charges of actual fraud on the part of the responsible officials were made or are justified upon the record. In more detail, plaintiffs assert that the conversion of the road in front of their homes from a 22-foot blacktoр to a 48-foot reinforced concrete pavement, designed and suitable
With much of defendants’ argument we are in complete agreement, but much of it is beside the point. It may well be that traffic and industrial conditions in a community justify the conversion of a
But does the home owner whose property abuts the new highway receive a special benefit for which he should pay a special assessment? The contrary would seem to be more accurate. Specifically, and in the situation before us the opinion of the trial chancellor goes directly, and correctly, to the heart of the problem in the following words: ;
“We come, though, to the essential question in the case. Admitting that these commissioners acted honestly and in the very best of faith, could these commissioners have found in the exercise of reason, and I underscore that phrase, in the exercise of reason, at the time they levied the special assessment, that the property specially assessed would receive benefits corresponding more or less to the amounts assessed. I believe not.
“It seems to me that no reasonable person or body could have concluded that the conversion of a 2-lane rural blacktop road, in a high-class residential district, to a 4-lane concrete highway would result in a net benefit to the residential properties abutting it. The east side of Sheldon is zoned ‘B-l.’ The homesites there constitute very high-grade residential properties. These improved homesites were worth $12,500 to $35,000 when the project was undertaken. Along with the testimony, a view of the project site confirmed to me that many of the parcels are in the $20,000 to $30,000 class. There are young children in thе families of many of the residents. It was patent at the outset that the widening
■ The chancellor, after examining certain of the testimony adduced, continued as follows:
“It is clear from this testimony that there was a feeling on the part of the commission that any road improvement automatically carries with it special benefit. This was' the thrust of the testimony of many of the commissioners. This was also the gist of testimony on the part of a number of other witnesses for the defendants. This idea that road improvements automatically carry with them special benefits to abutting property may have been true once, before communities had installed on a widespread basis impervious road surfaces which could be used easily by automobiles. It was probably safe to say that every time such a surface was installed on a right-of-way, for the first time, the adjacent owners were specially benefited.
“A simple equation of cost and benefit may not have been irrational in those days at the advent of the auto age. But, the order changed. Original paving of a dirt road without any change in its width of, say, 20 feet, may be clearly of special benefit to abutting owners. One cannot say the same about the widening of a road in a residential district and its repavement when the pre-existing impervious hard surface was amply adequate for abutting owners. Our communities, our way of life, have grown and become more complex. Under zoning and deed restrictions, residential islands have evolved.” ...
This is not to say that the adjacent home owners may not be required to pay thеir share of the cost of this new road in common with all the other taxpayers of the city. But the theory of the special assessment is that a special benefit has been conferred, over and above that conferred upon the com-' munity itself. Coоley’s exposition of the problem * , makes clear the theory of the special assessment:
“The general levy of taxes is understood to exact contributions in return for the general benefits of government, and it promises nothing to the persons taxed, beyond what may be anticipated from an administration of the laws for .individual protection and the general public good. Special assessments, on the other hand, are made upon the assumption that a portion of the community is to be specially and peculiarly benefited, in the enhancement of the vаlue of property peculiarly situated as regards a contemplated expenditure of public funds; and, in addition to the general levy, they demand that special contributions, in consideration of the special benefit, shall be made by the persоns receiving it.
See, also, the discussions of the problem in
City of Detroit
v.
Weil,
' It must be stressed that the facts before us do not ■involve a mere error in judgment on the part of assessing authorities. We do not trifle with such. Nor do they involve the substitution of the judgment of the court upon the worth of special benefits conferred. The assessors, not the court, weigh the .benefits, if, in truth, there are benefits to be weighed. The point here is more fundamental: where, viewed in its entirety, no benefit upon abutting property owners has been conferred by the improvement, but rather a detriment suffered, a special assessment based upon the enhancement of the value of the property is a fraud in law upon such property owners. There has been no enhancement. We are not unaware of such arguments as that the elimination of the formerly existing dirt shoulders would lessen the dust in the area, and that the depressions or ditches along the old road have been filled, but it was the conclusion of the trial chancellor that “the special benefits which are claimed by the city of Plymouth are pretty much afterthoughts.” We need not go so far. The doctrine of de minimis is fully ■applicable to alleged benefits conferred by the elimination of problems so nebulous.