Field v. Barling

Citations

• 149 Ill. 556
• 24 L.R.A. 406

Syllabus

<p>1. Streets—appropriation of part of its surface to private use. A private individual can not appropriate to his own exclusive use a portion of the surface of a street dedicated to the public use; and the dedication of a strip of land for a public street embraces not only the surface of the ground, but the light and air above, and an individual has no more right to obstruct the light and air above the street than he has to obstruct the surface of the soil.</p> <p>2. Where a strip of land is declared a public highway, the adjoining owner has the right to light and air from it. The column of light and air above the road-bed, whether of land or water, is as much a part of the highway as the road-bed itself; and when cities and villages have been built up along a-publie highway, the right to light and air from it becomes vested, and even the legislature has no power to deprive such abutting owners of that right without making just compensation.</p> <p>3. Same—municipal control over streets and alleys. Clause 7 of section 62, chapter 24, relating to cities and villages, confers power on cities organized under the general Incorporation act to lay out, establish, open, alter, widen, extend, grade, pave or otherwise improve streets, alleys, avenues, sidewalks, wharves, harbors and public grounds, and vacate the same. But there is nothing in any part of the general act which confers the power on the municipality to devote a street, or any part thereof, to a mere private use.</p> <p>4. Same—statutory dedication. Where the owner of land plats the same into lots, streets and alleys, in the manner required by law, there will be a statutory dedication of the streets and alleys, and the fee to the same will be vested in the city or village, in trust for the public, and for no other purpose.</p> <p>5. Same—enjoining construction of a bridge across a public alley— rights of owners of lots abutting on alley. Where the original proprietor of an addition to a city makes a plat thereo