Municipal regulation

“ The fundamental objective of (the) constitutional amendment and the implementing Municipal Zoning Enabling Act was local control of zoning and planning for the purpose of effecting the public good * * *. The original concept of local planning and zoning never contemplated prohibition in lieu of regulation nor the welfare of the few in place of the general welfare.
The exclusionary details are fully set forth in Land Use Regulation, The Residential Land Supply, previously referred to. ”

“ But this overlooks the fact that the regulation of municipal corporations is a matter peculiarly within the domain of state control; that the state is not compelled by the federal constitution to grant to all its municipl corporations the same territorial extent, or the same duties and powers. A municipal corporation is, so far as its purely municipal relations are concerned, simply an agency of the state for conducting the affairs of government, and as such it is subject to the control of the legislature. ”

“ The municipalities are in their area under their own responsibility the only public body responsible for the whole local public administration. They can take over any public duty if it is not by explicit legal regulation assigned exclusively to other bodies in urgent public interest.
(2) The municipal unions have within their legal responsibilities the same position.
(3) The right to self-administer their matters are provided to the municipalities and municipal unions by the state. The overseeing of the state is restricted to ensuring that the administration is in conformance with the laws. ”

“ With the new municipalities, a really autonomous and decentralized municipal government will be established in the towns, since no provincial assembly is created in the capitals of the provinces or districts, and each municipality is the legitimate administrator of the interests of its town, and will keep, preserve, and expend for the public welfare of the municipal funds. ”

“ The legal validity of any act by the city, such as the issuing of bonds, the contracting for a municipal waterworks or the granting of a municipal franchise, is not determined by the expressed desire of its citizens, but by the voice of the legislature as set out in some statute. The real seat of municipal authority, therefore, is not in the citizens, but in the state legislature; the city lives and moves and has its being in the will of the state. ”

“ The law names certain things which each city charter shall provide, and imposes certain restrictions on the powers of cities. There must be an elected Mayor and a body vested with legislative power; the clerk, treasurer, and assessors, and other officers may be elected or appointed. This permits the establishment of a commission system, or of a Mayor and council with distinct powers. Provision must be made for the levy, collection, and return of State, county, and school taxes, for annual appropriations for municipal purposes, and for a system of accounts. ”

“ It shall be proper for said cities to provide, by ordinance, for the exercise of all rights and powers herein conferred upon the City Planning Commission, by a park commission, or kindred municipal bureau or commission, authorized under existing laws. And no person holding office under the government of any of said cities, except the mayor, members of councils, or commissioners, shall be ineligible to serve as a member of a City Planning Commission. ”

“ A bill to incorporate a city and provide for its government may, without conflicting with the constitutional clause, contain provisions relating to the various subjects upon which municipal legislation may be required for the preservation of peach, good order, and health within its limits, the promotion of its growth and prosperity, and the raising of revenue for its government. ”

“ Suggestions have been made to the Commissioners that the nature of the thoroughfares, and the structure and internal arrangement of the buildings in districts inhabited by the working classes in large towns would be greatly improved if subject to the regulations of a Building Act enforced by the municipal authorities, or by a local board of health; they invite you to reflect on the provisions of such a law, and to state under what circumstances and to what extent you conceive such interference desirable. ”

“ The territorial legislature at least had the same authority as that possessed by congress to recognize claims of the nature described. It is a legislative power, and it was granted to the territorial legislature by the acts already referred to. A city is a municipal corporation and a political subdivision of the state, and, what the state could do itself, it has the power to direct its agent, the municipality, to do. ”

“ The municipality shall autonomously, in accordance with the Law, adopt its budget and annual balance sheet, the urban development plan and municipal development programme, establish the symbols of the municipality, as well as their use.
The municipality shall see to exercising, protection and improvement of human and minority rights, as well as to public informing in the municipality.
The municipality shall autonomously manage the municipal assets, in accordance with the Law. ”

“ This line of authority conclusively shows that the Court has never acknowledged that the States have power to do as they will with municipal corporations regardless of consequences. Legislative control of municipalities, no less than other state power, lies within the scope of relevant limitations imposed by the United States Constitution. ”

“ The constitution of a municipality assumes that citizens will give, freely and without pay, such time as is wanted for the conduct of the municipal affairs. In local government the Settlement carries on a quiet work which is perhaps more effective than its classes and its lectures. ”

“ The Land can oblige the municipalities and municipal associations by means of statutory regulations to assume and carry out certain public tasks, if arrangements are made to cover costs at the same time. ”

“ These are some of the tasks which cannot safely be intrusted to a municipality unless its government is above suspicion, unless men of probity and capacity are placed in power, unless the whole community extends its sympathy to the work and keeps a vigilant eye upon all the officials. Municipal governments cannot be encouraged to own public utilities so long as there is a risk that somebody may own municipal governments. ”

“ The city is organized, like the state government, on the plan of distributed powers and diffused responsibility. It contains, as a rule, an elaborate system of checks which affords little opportunity for the prompt and effective expression of local public opinion in the administration of municipal affairs. At the same time, it gives the municipal authorities power to inaugurate and carry out policies to which local public sentiment may be strongly opposed. This is seen in the control which the mayor and council quite generally exercise over the matter of municipal franchises. ”

“ The Urban District.—Of areas within which are administered the local affairs of the urban portions of the kingdom there are several of distinct importance, although in reality the institutions of urban government are less complex than they appear on the surface to be. In the main, the legal basis of urban organization is the Municipal Corporations Consolidation Act of 1882, which comprises a codification of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 and a mass of subsequent and amending legislation. ”

“ The mayor shall have exclusive jurisdiction in all cases arising under the ordinances of the corporation, and shall issue such process as may be necessary to carry said ordinances into execution and effect, appeals may be had from any decision or judgment of said mayor, or aldermen, arising under the city ordinances, to the municipal court, under such regulations as may be presented by ordinance. ”

“ Persons or corporations may establish and operate works for supplying the inhabitants with such services upon such conditions and under such regulations as the municipality may prescribe under its organic law, on condition that the municipal government shall have the right to regulate the charges thereof. ”

“ Counties, cities, and towns are municipal corporations, created by the authority of the legislature; and they derive all their powers from the source of their creation, except where the constitution of the State otherwise provides. Beyond doubt, they are, in general, made bodies politic and corporate; and are usually invested with certain subordinate legislative powers, to facilitate the due administration of their own internal affaris, and to promote the general welfare of the municipality. They have no inherent jurisdiction to make laws, or to adopt governmental regulations ”

“ It has been held that municipalities are not liable for such acts and omissions in the exercise of the police power, or in the performance of such municipal faculties as the erection and maintenance of a city hall and courthouse, the portection of the city's inhabitants against disease and unsanitary conditions, the care of the sick, the operation of fire departments, the inspection of steam boilers, the promotion of education and the administration of public charities. ”

“ With a growing intelligence and honesty in municipal enterprise, with greater freedom from the control of the Central Government, it may be found—especially on municipally-owned land—that the field of municipal activity may grow so as to embrace a very large area, and yet the municipality claim no rigid monopoly and the fullest rights of combination exist. ”

“ But the municipality of Garden City, besides setting its face against any attempt to embark upon too large a field of enterprise, will so frame its constitution that the responsibility for each branch of the municipal service will be thrown directly upon the officers of that branch and not be practically lost sight of because loosely thrown upon the larger central body—a plan which makes it difficult for the public to perceive where any leakage or friction may be taking place. ”

“ Moreover every urban authority and any rural authority invested by the Local Government Board with the requisite powers may, and when required by the said board shall, themselves undertake or contract for the proper cleansing of streets, and may also themselves undertake or contract for the proper watering of streets for the whole or any part of their district. ”

“ Institutions of the kind, whether called counties or towns, are the auxiliaries of the State in the important business of municipal rule, and cannot have the least pretension to sustain their privileges or their existence upon any thing like a contract between them and the legislature of the State, because there in not and cannot be any reciprocity of stipulation, and their objects and duties are utterly incompatible with every thing of the nature of compact. ”

“ With about four hundred municipal councils to lead, one may imagine what he will do with them: nothing except to drive them like a flock of sheep into a pen of printed regulations, or urge them on mechanically, in lots, according to his instructions, he himself being as automatic and as much in a rut as they are. ”

“ In some localities the inhabitants have met together and voluntarily formed a municipal organization for the purposes of local government, adopting the form of a municipal constitution and charter, under which said officials have been appointed; and ordinances creating and regulating a police force, a fire department, a department of health, and making provision for the care of the insane and indigent poor and sick and for public schools, have been passed. ”

“ Every urban authority shall within their district, exclusively of any other person, execute the office of and be surveyor of highways, and have, exercise, and be subject to all the powers, authorities, duties, and liabilities of surveyors of highways under the law for the time being in force, save so far as such powers, authorities, or duties are or may be inconsistent with the provisions of this Act ”

“ Of these the most important was the Municipal Act, which gave local self-government to the villages, towns, townships and counties of Upper Canada. The people of each municipality could now manage such matters as building roads, bridges, jails and court-houses, through men elected for that purpose, and who were called councillors in villages, towns and townships, and aldermen in cities. ”

“ This municipal assembly shall be the Council of Administration, which shall establish for the entire extent of its jurisdiction the rules of the common regime, and shall decide on all that concerns the municipal police, its internal security, sanitary policy, the management and use of municipal revenues, local expenditures, and generally all that is within the jurisdiction of the municipalities.
Art. 43. The active power shall be entirely, and for all the extent of the municipal district, in the hands of the mayor and his lieutenant, who shall be elected immediately by the primary assemblies. ”

“ The following clause, however, of the Public Health Act 1875 affects the question of new projections much more closely.
“It shall not be lawful in any urban district, without the written consent of the urban authority, to bring forward any house or building forming part of any street or any part thereof, beyond the front wall of the house or building on either side thereof, nor to build any addition thereto beyond the front of the house or building on either side of the same. Any person offending against this enactment shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding 40s. ”