delivered the opinion of the court:
Plaintiffs, David and Tybe Zisook, challenged the constitutionality of the 1953 amendments to the Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation Law by their complaint in the circuit court of Cook County, which sought to enjoin defendants, Maryland-Drexel Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation, the city of Chicago, and the members of the Neighborhood Redevelopment Commission of the city of Chicago, from taking any action, incurring any obligations, or expending any funds under the authority of those amendments. Defendants’ motions to strike the complaint, as amended, and to dismiss the cause were sustained. Plaintiffs elected to stand on their amended complaint, and appeal directly from a decree dismissing the action.
Plaintiffs are residents and taxpayers of the city of Chicago. The Neighborhood Redevelopment Commission was appointed under the Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation Law, and the defendant Maryland-Drexel Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation was formed on October 23, 1953, under that law. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1953, chap. 32, pars. 550.1 et seq.) Maryland-Drexel Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation is authorized by its charter to redevelop only “conservation areas” and not “slum and blighted areas.” It filed with the Neighborhood Redevelopment Commission of the city of Chicago an application for approval of a development plan and for a certificate of convenience and necessity. In its application it stated that it desired to redevelop an area in Chicago bounded by Cottage Grove Avenue on the west, Drexel Avenue on the east, Fifty-fourth Street on the north and Fifty-fifth Street on the south; that this development area was not yet a slum and blighted area but would become such unless redeveloped; that the area was a “Conservation Area,” within the meaning of the Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation Law, as amended, and was in need of redevelopment and conservation. It further stated in its application that it would exercise the right of eminent domain, if and when necessary to the proposed redevelopment plan, upon obtaining written consent to the development plan from the owners of 60 per cent or more of the area of land within the development area, and that it did not propose either to purchase, or to secure options to purchase, 60 per cent or more in area of the land within the development area.
The Redevelopment Commission ordered that the application be docketed in its conservation docket as Conservation Application No. 1, and that the commission proceed upon the application in accordance with the provisions of the Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation Law, as amended. On December 11, 1953, the city council of Chicago appropriated $1000 for the expenses of the Redevelopment Commission in processing and proceeding upon applications for redevelopment of “conservation areas.”
The constitutionality of the Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation Law of 1943 was sustained in Zurn v. City of Chicago,
Section 42(1) (c) originally required as a prerequisite to the institution of condemnation proceedings that a development corporation should have acquired, by purchase or options, 60 per cent or more in area of the land within its development area. The 1953 amendments permit, as an alternative prerequisite, proof that the owners of 60 per cent or more in the area of land within the development area have assented to and agreed to be bound by the terms of the development plan of the redevelopment corporation as to themselves and their property. Sections 19, 30 and 31, providing for appeal to the circuit court and to the Appellate or Supreme Court were repealed in 1949, effective January 1, 1950, and section 30.01, providing for judicial review pursuant to the Administrative Review Act, was added. (Laws of 1949, p. 637.) And in 1953 the title of the act was broadened to include the prevention and conservation of slum and blight areas.
Plaintiffs contend that because of these material changes in the statute, our decision in the Zurn case is not controlling. They argue first that the 1953 amendments to the Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation Law unlawfully delegate legislative powers to municipal’ Neighborhood Redevelopment Commissions without ’ prescribing standards or rules to govern their determinations, and are so vague and indefinite as to threaten a denial of due process of law. The core of this contention is in the attack made upon the definition of “Conservation Area” in section 3-12. This definition differs from the definition of a “Conservation Area” in section 3 of the Urban Community Conservation Act in that the conservation area there involved must not be less than 160 acres. That definition also includes two additional factors not mentioned in the present act: “decline of physical maintenance” and “lack of community planning.” In People ex rel. Gutknecht v. City of Chicago, ante, p. 539, decided this day, we have held that the definition of “Conservation Area” in the Urban Community Conservation Act is not vulnerable to constitutional attack on the ground that it fails to prescribe adequate standards and guides. While the reasons there stated apply with like force to the definition of “Conservation Area” in the statute here involved, a further word is appropriate.
In the act now before us, and in the Urban Community Conservation Act, the General Assembly provided for the creation of agencies which are designed to check the decline of urban areas into slums. The Urban Community Conservation Act contemplates action by governmental agencies. This act authorizes a pattern of action by private agencies, called redevelopment corporations, under governmental supervision. The pattern of action which the amended statute provides for the prevention of slums has been held valid when applied to the elimination of slums. Zurn v. City of Chicago,
In neither case has it been questioned that urban areas exist which are deteriorating into slums," nor has it been suggested that the existence of such areas is not a legitimate governmental concern. Both attacks have centered upon the alleged inadequacy of the legislative effort to capture the elusive characteristics of the areas with which it is dealing. Here it is argued, with respect to each of the distinguishing attributes which the statutory definition includes, that it is not stated “how much dilapidation,” “how much obsolescence,” and so forth, is required. The point would have significance if the techniques of the accountant were applicable. But the combinations of factors which produce the result at which the legislation is aimed cannot be appraised with that degree of precision. The situation here is like that presented in Department of Public Works and Buildings v. Lanter,
Plaintiffs also argue that under section 24, as amended to cover conservation areas, the Redevelopment Commission is vested with unlimited discretion as to the size of a redevelopment area, which, in Chicago, shall not be “less than two city blocks nor more than 160 acres, * * * unless the Revelopment Commission, in the interests of the orderly Redevelopment of a Slum and Blight or Conservation Area, shall * * * authorize a reduction or increase of the Development Area.” Reading this provision literally, plaintiffs ■ say that the commission is empowered to reduce a development area to but a single structure or to increase it by any number of blocks it chooses.
The 1953 amendments added the words “or Conservation” to the quoted portion of section 24 and increased the maximum size of a redevolpment area from 80 to 160 acres. Apart from these changes, the section remains the same as when its validity was sustained in Zurn v. City of Chicago,
Plaintiffs’ next contention is directed at the definition of a “Development Plan.” Section 3-4 defines at considerable length a development plan, enumerating fourteen requirements which may be included. Of these, twelve are for all practical purposes the same as those permissible in a conservation plan under the Urban Community Conservation Act. (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1953, chap. 67%, par. 91.12.) Attention is directed to the opening portion of section 3-4 stating that a development plan “may include but is not limited to” the fourteen items set forth with particularity. From this, plaintiffs make the bald assertion that there are no limitations whatever upon the kind of development plan for a conservation area which may be accepted and approved by the commission. Section 17, however, describes in great detail the requirements of a development plan. Section 3-4, as amended, defines a development plan far more fully than did the original definition which was summarily held free from the same attack now made. (Zurn v. City of Chicago,
Relying upon Chicagoland Agencies, Inc. v. Palmer,
Although section 4 was not changed by the 1953 amendments, the question raised here, not being mentioned in the briefs or the opinion in the Zurn case, is open for consideration.
Plaintiffs point to no constitutional provision which requires that affirmative qualifications be affixed to an office such as. this. There is none. An office created by statute may be filled in the manner the legislature prescribes. (Groves v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago,
Ill. 528; People ex rel. Akin v. Loeffler,
Plaintiffs’ contention that the new method of judicial review which the amendments provide is grossly inadequate may be disposed of shortly. The argument is advanced here, as it was in the Zurn case, that the notice provisions of section 18, relating to the public hearing upon the development plan and the issuance or denial of a certificate of convenience or necessity, are inadequate. This issue was presented directly and decided adversely to plaintiffs in Zurn v. City of Chicago,
In addition, plaintiffs stress the fact that review of the decisions of the Redevelopment Corporation, effective July 1, 1950, is to be pursuant to the Administrative Review Act. Plaintiffs characterize such review as “severely restricted, for the Court is limited to consideration of the record of proceedings before the Commission and cannot hear any new or additional evidence in opposition to the Commission’s determinations.” A complete answer to this contention is that the 1953 amendments effected no substanve change in the method of judicial review. Sections 19 and 30 of the original law each provided that no new or additional evidence could be introduced upon the review by the circuit court and that, in the event of failure to appeal from the order of the commission, there could be no trial of the merits of such controversy by any court to which application might be made to enforce such order of the commission or in any other judicial proceeding. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1949, chap. 32, pars. 550-19, 550-30.
Indeed, plaintiffs themselves recognize that no substantive change in judicial review was effected, submitting in their reply brief that “the amended review provisions must be considered in the light of the new definitions of crucial terms in the Act.” It is clear that plaintiffs’ entire argument on this point is predicated upon a theory which we have rejected, — that the new definitions involve an unlawful delegation of legislative power without definite standards. The method of judicial review prescribed by the statute is sufficient. See Zurn v. City of Chicago,
As originally enacted, section 42 of the Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation Law provided that, before instituting condemnation proceedings, a Redevelopment Corporation was required to submit proof to the commission that it had acquired by purchase, or had secured options to purchase, 60 per cent or more or the land within the development area. This section was amended in 1953 to provide as an alternative that the corporation may submit proof that the owners of 60 per cent or more in area of the land within the development area have “assented to and consented to be bound by the terms and provisions of the Development Plan of the Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation as to themselves and their property.” Plaintiffs contend that section 42, as amended, improperly delegates legislative power to property owners.
What the General Assembly has done is to authorize redevelopment corporations to exercise the right of eminent domain upon certain prescribed conditions. (Zurn v. City of Chicago,
The contention that the 1953 amendments authorize the taking of private property for a private use in violation of constitutional limitations is disposed of by our opinion in People v. City of Chicago, ante, p. 539, decided this day, which holds that the Urban Community Conservation Act does not authorize the taking of private property for a private purpose. Our conclusion there is decisive of the identical contention made here, which is supported by essentially the same arguments.
When the 1953 amendments were enacted, the title of the Neighborhood Redevelopment Corporation Law was amended, by the addition of the words italicized, to read as follows: “An Act to provide for the prevention and eradication of slum and blight areas and the conservation, rehabilitation and rebuilding thereof through the medium of neighborhood redevelopment corporations with powers of eminent domain.” By their final contention, plaintiffs assert that the amended title is insufficient to embrace the 1953 amendments because it does not suggest provisions relating to the conservation, rehabilitation and rebuilding of areas other than slum and blight areas. The nub of the contention is that the word “thereof” refers to slum and blight areas only, and there is therefore nothing in the title referring to the conservation, rehabilitation and rebuilding of conservation areas. In our opinion, the addition of the words “prevention” and “conservation” to the title enlarged it sufficiently to include the slum prevention and conservation provisions incorporated in the body of the statute.
What is required is that the title of an act fairly indicate the general subject and reasonably cover all the provisions of the act, so as not to mislead either the legislature or the public. (People v. Roche,
The decree of the circuit court of Cook County is affirmed.
Decree affirmed.