Section 10.12 Contractual Rights to Specific Construction Features

• Library: Eminent Domain 3rd Edition 2013

The State, acting in the reasonable exercise of the discretion conferred upon it, can change the route of a highway when it determines that it is within the best interests of the public to do so, notwithstanding that the effect of such a change is to seriously damage or destroy the value of property along the old route. Such discretion cannot be surrendered by state officers, and no promise or agreement by any of them can create a vested right in the owner of an adjacent property that the route shall continue to exist as promised.

State ex rel. Sullivan v. Carrow, 57 Ariz. 434, 114 P.2d 896 (1941)

Carrow stands only for the proposition that promissory estoppel, as a substitute for consideration, is not binding on the State. In Carrow the assurances and promises...