Colorado § 31-15-702 - Streets and alleys.

§ 31-15-702. Streets and alleys.

(1) The governing body of each municipality has the power:

(a) (I) To lay out, establish, open, alter, widen, extend, grade, pave, or otherwise improve streets, parks, and public grounds and vacate the same and to direct and regulate the planting of ornamental and shade trees in such streets, parks, and public grounds; to plant trees upon the same; to regulate the use of the same; to prevent and remove encroachments or obstructions upon the same; to provide for the lighting of the same; and to provide for the cleansing of the same;

(II) To regulate the openings therein for the laying-out of gas or water mains and pipes, the building and repairing of sewers, tunnels, and drains, and the erecting of utility poles. Any company organized under the general laws of this state or any association of persons organized for the purpose of manufacturing energy to supply municipalities or the inhabitants thereof with the same has the right by consent of the governing body, but not without such consent, subject to existing rights, to erect factories and lay down pipes in the streets or alleys of any municipality in the state, subject to such regulations as any such municipality by ordinance may impose.

(III) To regulate the use of sidewalks along the streets and alleys and all structures thereunder and to require the owner or occupant of any premises to keep the sidewalks, or along the same, free from snow and other obstructions;

(IV) To regulate and prevent the throwing or depositing of ashes, garbage, or any offensive matter in and to prevent any injury to any street, park, or public ground;

(V) To provide for and regulate crosswalks, curbs, and gutters;

(VI) To regulate and prevent the use of streets, parks, and public grounds for signs, signposts, awnings, awning posts, and power and communications poles, and for posting handbills and advertisements; to regulate and prohibit the exhibition or carrying of banners, placards, advertisements, or handbills in the streets or public grounds or upon the sidewalks; and to regulate and prevent the flying of flags, banners, or signs across the streets or from houses;

(VII) To regulate traffic and sales upon the streets, sidewalks, and public places and to regulate the speed of vehicles, cars, and locomotives within the limits of the municipality;

(VIII) To regulate the numbering of houses and lots and to name and change the name of any street or other public place;

(b) (I) To provide for the construction and maintenance of sidewalks, curbs, and gutters of such material and in such manner as shall be designated and to provide for paying the expenses thereof by special assessments upon the adjacent or abutting property, which assessments shall constitute a lien as provided in section 31-15-401 (1)(d)(I);

(II) To grade, grade or gravel, or otherwise surface or improve streets and alleys and to assess the costs of such improvements upon the lots or lands adjacent to or abutting upon any street or alley or portion thereof so improved, which assessments shall constitute a lien as provided in section 31-15-401 (1)(d);

(c) To grant, by ordinance and upon such terms and conditions as may be prescribed therein, to other municipalities the right-of-way through, over, across, and under streets and alleys for the purpose of laying, constructing, operating, maintaining, and repairing waterworks and all pipelines connected therewith;

(d) To authorize the construction of mills and mill races, irrigating or mining ditches, and feeders on, through, or across the streets of the municipality at such places and under such restrictions as deemed proper.

Source: L. 75: Entire title R&RE, p. 1113, § 1, effective July 1.

Editor's note: The provisions of this section are similar to provisions of several former sections as they existed prior to 1975. For a detailed comparison, see the comparative tables located in the back of the index.

ANNOTATION

Law reviews. For article, "Regulation of Cable Television", see 48 U. Colo. L. Rev. 501 (1977). For note, "The Permissible Scope of Compulsory Requirements for Land Development in Colorado", see 54 U. Colo. L. Rev. 447 (1983).

Annotator's note. Since § 31-15-702 is similar to former § 31-12-101 prior to the 1975 repeal and reenactment of this title, and laws antecedent thereto, a relevant case construing a prior provision has been included in the annotations to this section.

No constitutional limit. Under this section, municipalities have power to regulate the use of their public streets within constitutional limitations. Trujillo v. City of Walsenburg, 108 Colo. 427, 118 P.2d 1081 (1941).

Due process requirements regarding trash ordinances. Due process, as it applies to cases involving municipal trash ordinances, requires only that a municipal ordinance enacted under the police power shall not be unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious, and that it bear a rational relation to a proper legislative object sought to be attained. United States Disposal Sys. v. City of Northglenn, 193 Colo. 277, 567 P.2d 365 (1977).

A presumption of reasonableness attaches to ordinances promulgated for the health, safety, and welfare of the public. United States Disposal Sys. v. City of Northglenn, 193 Colo. 277, 567 P.2d 365 (1977).

An ordinance comports with due process when it bears a reasonable relationship to a legitimate governmental interest. Municipal ordinances for road improvement project that eliminated parking on the municipality's right-of-way near a condominium were a reasonable exercise of the municipality's police powers. The ordinances were within the municipality's police power to regulate matters of public health, safety, and welfare. The measures were a reasonable exercise of that power because they were reasonably related to the municipality's objectives of improving traffic safety, improving water drainage, and remedying a missing portion of a recreational bike path. Town of Dillon v. Yacht Club Condo. Assn., 2014 CO 37, 325 P.3d 1032.

U.S. supreme court's contemporary regulatory takings jurisprudence makes clear that the relevant inquiries for due process and takings claims are distinct. Because the property owner did not (and could not) assert a takings claim, the lower courts' focus on the magnitude and character of the burden imposed on the property owner by the ordinance was misplaced. Town of Dillon v. Yacht Club Condo. Assn., 2014 CO 37, 325 P.3d 1032.

Police power prevails over proprietary powers. As between the proprietary powers given to a district organized under section 32-4-101 and the police power to protect its citizens and streets given to a city by this section, the police power prevails. People v. Haase, 198 Colo. 47, 596 P.2d 392 (1979).

Immune from liability. In regulating public streets, the town, as such, acts within its governmental capacity and falls within the rule of immunity against liability in connection with the enforcement of its ordinances. Walker v. Tucker, 131 Colo. 198, 280 P.2d 649 (1955).

Under this section, the city is authorized to establish and improve streets and sidewalks and prevent and remove obstructions therefrom and the execution of this power may be required as public duty. People ex rel. Stonebraker v. Wood, 90 Colo. 506, 10 P.2d 331 (1932).

A municipality has broad power to vacate streets or roadways within its boundaries. City of Colo. Springs v. Crumb, 148 Colo. 32, 364 P.2d 1053 (1961).

The broad power of a municipality to vacate streets or roadways within its boundaries is subject only to the limitations of the constitution and the authority delegated by statute, and a court of equity will not review its action in the absence of fraud or a plain abuse of power. City of Colo. Springs v. Crumb, 148 Colo. 32, 364 P.2d 1053 (1961).

Scope of powers under paragraph (a). Paragraph (a), giving to municipal authorities power to vacate parks and public grounds, does not empower such authorities to alienate a plat of ground dedicated to the use of the people of a city for a public park, or to appropriate it, or any part of it, for a use inconsistent with the purpose of the dedication. McIntyre v. Bd. of Comm'rs, 15 Colo. App. 78, 61 P. 237 (1900).

Street cut permit may be required by municipality. A municipality, acting reasonably, has the right to require a water and sanitation district, or those acting in its behalf, to obtain a permit to effect a street cut to repair the district's water lines located below the surface of a street. People v. Haase, 198 Colo. 47, 596 P.2d 392 (1979).

Theory upon which owner of property abutting street may be required to pay costs of public improvements, such as streets, street paving, curbs, gutters and sidewalks, is that the property is especially benefited by the improvements over and above the general benefit to the public at large. Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church v. City of Lakewood, 626 P.2d 668 (Colo. 1981).

Refuse and litter control is clearly within the framework of legitimate municipal concern. Mosgrove v. Town of Federal Heights, 190 Colo. 1, 543 P.2d 715 (1975).

A city has the power to regulate traffic by municipal ordinance within its boundaries only. Svaldi v. City of Lakewood, 36 Colo. App. 155, 536 P.2d 331 (1975).

A town was empowered by the Colorado constitution to adopt an ordinance that restricted truck traffic on two major streets in the town. Carl Ainsworth, Inc. v. Town of Morrison, 189 Colo. 223, 539 P.2d 1267 (1975).

The enforcement of a town ordinance prohibiting truck traffic on two major streets in the town did not operate as an unreasonable, arbitrary, and discriminatory exercise of police power in violation of amendment 14, U.S. Const. and § 25 of art. II, Colo. Const. Carl Ainsworth, Inc. v. Town of Morrison, 189 Colo. 223, 539 P.2d 1267 (1975).

A town has the right to regulate curb cuts under its police power. Heckendorf v. Town of Littleton, 132 Colo. 108, 286 P.2d 615 (1955).

Unconstitutional fee on use of curb cut. A town ordinance requiring a license and an annual fee to be paid by an abutting property owner using a curb cut as a means of ingress and egress to his property, where regulation under such ordinance amounted to nothing more than a billing of the property owner, such fee is a tax on the right of ingress and egress and not a regulatory fee, and as such is unconstitutional. Heckendorf v. Town of Littleton, 132 Colo. 108, 286 P.2d 615 (1955).

The privilege of a citizen to use the streets of a municipality may be regulated in the interest of all, however, such privilege is not absolute, and must be exercised in subordination to the general comfort and convenience, and in consonance with peace and good order, but it must not, under the guise of regulation, be abridged or denied. Trujillo v. City of Walsenburg, 108 Colo. 427, 118 P.2d 1081 (1941).

But not in violation of fourteenth amendment. A municipal ordinance which leaves to the uncontrolled official discretion of a chief of police the right to say who shall, and who shall not, use its streets for parades or assemblages is authorization of the exercise of arbitrary power by a governmental agency, is in violation of the fourteenth amendment of the federal constitution, and void on its face. Trujillo v. City of Walsenburg, 108 Colo. 427, 118 P.2d 1081 (1941).

Delegation of ministerial duties. A city cannot delegate the authority given by this section to establish the grade of a sidewalk, however it may delegate mere ministerial power, e.g., surveying, investigation, computation, and may take the advice of professional people, but the final determination must be made by the council. City of Leadville v. McDonald, 67 Colo. 131, 186 P. 715 (1919).

Ordinance preventing removal of buildings not within authority of section. An ordinance imposing on the moving of buildings outside the corporate limits of the town a license tax so high as to be prohibitive, which ordinance was plainly passed to prevent the removal of buildings from the town, is not a regulation of the use of the streets authorized by this section but is a pure prohibition, and it is on its face unjust, unreasonable, discriminative, oppressive, and resorted to for an illegal purpose; hence it is unconstitutional and void. Town of Eckley v. Meyers, 116 Colo. 536, 181 P.2d 1014 (1947).

Ordinance prohibiting utilities from requiring municipalities to pay for the relocation of a utility facility is valid as a reasonable exercise of police power and the power to regulate streets and utility poles. U S West Commc'ns v. City of Longmont, 948 P.2d 509 (Colo. 1997).

Applied In Lewis v. Denver Waterworks Co., 19 Colo. 236, 34 P. 993 (1893); Mitchell v. Titus, 33 Colo. 385, 80 P. 1042 (1905); City of Colo. Springs v. Colo. & S. Ry., 38 Colo. 107, 89 P. 820 (1906); Bittle v. Brunetti, 750 P.2d 49 (Colo. 1988).