Vacations - Easements, Reserves, Streets, Walkways - 1979-1981 pt1

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356 EAST BAY MUN. UTILITY DIST. V. RICHMOND REDEVELOPMENT AGENCY 93 Cal.App.3d 346, — Ca1.Rptr. — and private property acquired, and are governmental functions of state . concern in the interest of health, safety, "and welfare of the people of the State and of Ahe communities in which the areas. exist." (§ 33037, subd. (c); italics added.) The case law likewise underlines that a city has a legitimate right to exercise its eminent domain power for public benefit and that the clearing, planning and rehabilitation of substandard areas is for the ` benefit of the public (Redevelopment Agency v. Hayes (1954) 122 Ca1.App.2d 777 [266 P.2d 1051; New York Telephone Co. v. City of Binghamton (1966) 18 N.Y.2d 152 [272 N.Y.S.2d 359, 219 N.E.2d 184]). As the court put it in Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Redevelopment Agency, supra, 75 Cal.App.3d at p. 969. "However, in this day and age it is too late to quarrel with the proposition that elimination of urban blight by acquiring and clearing areas so infected and converting them into sites for commercial and industrial development is a legitimate governmental function. [Citations.] To hold otherwise would be viewing `present day conditions under the myopic eyes of years now gone.' [Citation.]" Paraphrasing the holding of another recent case. City of San Pablo V. East Bay Mun. Utility Dist. (1977) 75 Cal.App.3d 609, 615 [142 Cal.Rptr. 256], we conclude that since the Agency did not exercise its governmental powers under the Community Redevelopment Law to secure abandon- ment and relocation of EBMUD's water mains, it was not obligated to reimburse EBMUD for its relocation expenses. And since the City's vacation of public streets to enable the removal of urban blight and substandard conditions is obviously a proper exercise of its police powers, under well established law EBMUD was required to bear the relocation . cost of its facilities. Respondent's alternative contention that the judgment below is sus- tainable under the theory that EBMUD was a third party beneficiary under the Grant Contract entered into between the federal government and the Agency, requires but a relatively short discussion. Civil Code, section 1559, .provides that "A contract, made expressly for the benefit of a third person, may be enforced by him at any time before the parties thereto rescind it." The. American law which is followed by the California decisions classifies persons having enforceable rights under contracts to which they are not parties as either creditor beneficiaries or donee beneficiaries (Southern Cal. Gas Co. v. ABC Construction Co. [May 19791