Offen v. City of Topeka

The opinion of the court was delivered by This was an action brought by five plaintiffs (appellees),
George H. Offen, W.K. Thompson, Otis Lane, J.R. Terrel and Glen
Allen, as individuals and for all other persons similarly
situated (hereinafter referred to as plaintiffs), against the
City of Topeka and its named Board of Commissioners (hereinafter
referred to as Commission), and the Urban Renewal Agency of
Topeka and its named Board of Commissioners (hereinafter referred
to as Agency), defendants (appellants), alleging, in part, that
plaintiffs were the owners of real estate in that area within the
city known as the "Keyway Urban Renewal Project No. Kansas R-2";
that, purporting to act under the provisions of G.S. 1957 Supp.,
Ch. 17, Art. 47, the Commission designated the area in
[186 Kan. 390]
controversy as "slum and blighted," and approved an urban renewal
plan for the same. Plaintiffs further alleged that at the time
the Commission adopted its resolution finding all of the area
slum and blighted, there were no facts before it to support such
a finding; that a large number of the blocks taken into the area
were neither slum nor blighted area and such a fact was a matter
of common knowledge; that subsequently the Commission, by
resolution, approved the plan submitted by the Agency, which plan
became a project the Agency was bound to execute, and that steps
were being taken to acquire plaintiffs' property by eminent
domain. Plaintiffs, as property owners within the area, alleged
that the Commission, in designating the area in question as slum
and blighted and in approving an urban renewal plan for the area
submitted to it by the Agency, acted arbitrarily, capriciously
and contrary to the Urban Renewal Law (G.S. 1957 Supp., Ch. 17,
Art. 47), and our state and our federal constitutions. Plaintiffs
sought to have the two aforementioned resolutions set aside and
declared void, and defendants enjoined from taking further action
to carry out the approved plan taking the property of plaintiffs.
From an order overruling defendants' demurrer to plaintiffs'
petition, defendants appeal.