Agenda - Planning Commission - 12/06/2018

Home

Zoning Bulletin November 10, 2018 I Volume 12 I Issue 21 Citation: Black v. City of Rancho Palos Verdes, 26 Cal. App. 5th 1077, 237 Cal. Rpti: 3d 663 (2d Dist. 2018) CALIFORNIA (09/06/18)—This case addressed the issue of whether landowners had established a futility exception to the exhaustion of administrative remedies requirement prior to bringing a legal action in court that challenged a municipal zoning decision. The Background/Facts: Since 1978, the City of Rancho Palos Verdes (the "City") had a building moratorium on an area of land because of the resurgence of an ancient landslide. In 1993, a City geologist proposed that the moratorium area be divided into eight zones for purposes of discussing remediation efforts and residential development. Relevant to this case, that geologist identified "Zone 2"—a 130-acre area, consisting of "[s]ubdivided land unaffected by large historic landslides" —as an area that "could be developed without adversely affecting the stability of the large ancient landslide." In January 2009, the City amended the moratorium to allow some projects in Zone 2 to qualify for a "landslide moratorium exception permit only if all applicable requirements of [the City] code are satisfied" and only after those particular project applicants submitted to the City any geological or geotechnical studies required by the City to demonstrate that the proposed project would not aggravate the existing landslide instability. In November 2015, the owners of eight lots in Zone 2 (the "Landown- ers") sued the City. Those Landowners asked the court to order certain actions regarding undeveloped lots in Zone 2, and alleged a single cause of action for inverse condemnation. The trial court held that the Landowners failed to demonstrate that the moratorium constituted an unlawful taking. The trial court found that the Landowners failed to demonstrate that the moratorium "on its face, prevented] all economic use of properties located in Zone 2." Impor- tantly, the trial court further found that the Landowners needed to "exhaust administrative remedies before the [trial court could] determine whether, as applied to the [ landowners'] properties and their intended uses for the properties, there is an unlawful taking." (The record in the litigation revealed that as of February 2017, no applications for exclu- sions from the moratorium had been filed.) The Landowners appealed. On appeal, they challenged the constitu- tionality of the moratorium, and argued that they were excused from exhausting their administrative remedies because to do so would be futile. DECISION: Judgment of Superior Court affirmed. The Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 1, California, held that the Landowners had failed to establish the futility exception to the exhaustion of remedies requirement applied in this case. The court explained that before challenging a land use regulation in court, land- © 2018 Thomson Reuters 3