## Facts

- Private landowners owned about 4.5 acres in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and intended to develop the tract for residential housing during a period of high housing demand.
- The City Council adopted Ordinance No. 960 (Apr. 10, 1950), approving a general parks and playgrounds plan that mapped the landowners’ tract within a proposed park area.
- Under a Pennsylvania enabling statute, after adopting such a plan the city could bar private building or development within the mapped area for up to three years without paying compensation and without initiating condemnation during the hold period.
- The landowners alleged the ordinance and statute effectively froze their property, depressed its value, and deprived them of use and enjoyment.
- The trial court dismissed the landowners’ complaint seeking declaratory relief invalidating both the ordinance and the enabling statute; the landowners appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether a statute and ordinance that temporarily bar building on privately owned land mapped for a proposed public park for up to three years, without compensation or condemnation, violate constitutional protections against uncompensated takings and deprivation of property.
2. Whether the temporary reservation is a permissible planning regulation under the police power or an exercise of eminent domain requiring compensation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the dismissal of the complaint.
- The court upheld the enabling statute and the ordinance as constitutional.
- The court held the time-limited reservation and development restriction did not constitute a compensable taking on its face and as applied on these facts.

## Legal Principles

- A municipality may, under legislative authorization, adopt a general public-improvements plan and temporarily restrict development within a mapped area for a limited period to preserve the feasibility of contemplated public uses.
- A short, fixed-duration restriction aimed at coordinated planning may be treated as police-power regulation rather than an exercise of eminent domain, even if it causes temporary economic loss.
- The constitutional analysis turns on reasonableness, including the restriction’s limited duration and its relation to legitimate public objectives; an indefinite or confiscatory restraint would present different concerns.
- Inclusion of property within a plan and temporary limitation on building, without transfer of title or possession, is not necessarily an appropriation requiring immediate compensation.

## Conclusion

The court sustained a statutory scheme allowing a city to reserve mapped land for a proposed park and bar development for up to three years without immediate compensation, treating the restraint as a reasonable, time-limited planning measure rather than a taking requiring condemnation and payment.


Miller v. City of Beaver Falls, 368 Pa. 189, 82 A.2d 34 (Pa. 1951)