Pines v. City of Santa Monica

• Decision Date: 25 July 1980
• Citation: 108 Cal.App.3d 577,166 Cal.Rptr. 649
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: The PINES, etc., et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CITY OF SANTA MONICA et al., Defendants and Appellants. Civ. 57153.

Page 649

166 Cal.Rptr. 649

108 Cal.App.3d 577

The PINES, etc., et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. CITY OF SANTA MONICA et al., Defendants and Appellants.

Civ. 57153.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 3, California.

July 25, 1980.

Richard L. Knickerbocker, City Atty., Kaplan, Livingston, Goodwin, Berkowitz & Selvin and Herman F. Selvin, Beverly Hills, for defendants and appellants.

Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker and Ronald M. Oster, Los Angeles, for plaintiffs and respondents.

COBEY, Acting Presiding Justice.

Defendant, City of Santa Monica (City), appeals from a judgment in favor of plaintiffs (eight condominium developers) ¹ declaring the City's Condominium Tax Ordinance invalid and refunding to plaintiffs all taxes they paid to the City pursuant to the ordinance in the principal amount of $138,000 plus appropriate interest. ² This total The trial court ruled that this local tax was illegal because it was imposed upon a subject of statewide concern, namely, condominium subdivision development and construction, a legislative area long preempted by the Legislature through the Subdivision Map Act (Gov.Code, §§ 66410, et seq.). The City disputes the legal correctness of this ruling and rationale and the judgment based thereon on the ground that, as a chartered city (Gov.Code, § 34101), its ordinances under the California Constitution (art. XI, § 5, subd. (a)), relating to municipal affairs, such as local taxation, prevail over even conflicting state statutes. Thus, the decisive questions on this appeal are whether the challenged tax represents a state or a municipal affair and whether local taxation of condominium subdivisions has been preempted by the state. (See Bishop v. City of San Jose (1969) 1 Cal.3d 56, 61-63, 81 Cal.Rptr. 465, 460 P.2d 137.)

represents a one-time license tax charge of $1,000 for each salable condominium unit.

This local tax clearly impacts the development and construction of condominiums within the City since it burdens the process. The already mentioned Subdivision Map Act prescribes statewide the content generally and the procedures generally for the preparation and processing of tentative and final subdivision maps by local agencies to whom the Act expressly, however, delegates the power to regulate and control by local ordinances both subdivision design and improvement and the handling of parcel maps. (See Gov.Code, §§ 66411, 66418-66420, 66424, 66426, 66427-66427.2, 66433, 66444, 66451, 66463.) Such local ordinances, though, must be consistent and not in conflict with the Act. (Gov.Code, § 66421.)

But the ordinance before us is exclusively a local taxing ordinance purportedly enacted solely to provide revenue for the City. ³ Its only relation to subdivisions is that the tax authorized by it is levied upon the development and construction within the City of a particular kind of subdivision, namely, a condominium subdivision. It is true that the mapping and related requirements respecting such subdivisions are covered for the most part by state law, i. e., the already-identified Subdivision Map Act. The imposition of a municipal tax upon condominium subdivisions does not appear to us, however, in any way to conflict with the subdivision mapping and related requirements found in the Subdivision Map Act. ⁴ There is nothing at all in that statute purporting to deal with the taxation of condominium subdivisions.

Nevertheless there are three earlier decisions of this court which have struck down similar municipal ordinances on the ground that each of them exceeded the delegation of local authority contained in the Sub-Division Map Act. ⁵ These are the cases upon which the trial court expressly relied in rendering the judgment under appeal. The oldest of them is Kelber v. City of Upland (1957) 155 Cal.App.2d 631, 318 P.2d 561, which involved the validity of two fees imposed by the defendant municipality in its subdivision control ordinance. The first was $30 per lot to be paid by the subdivider into the "Park and School Site Fund." The other was $99.07 per acre to be paid by the residential subdividers to the "Subdivision drainage Fund." (Id. at p. 633, 318 P.2d 561.) The court held both fees to be beyond the supplemental authority granted local agencies by the Subdivision Map Act. (Id. at p. 638, 318 P.2d 561.)

This case is not controlling here, however, since defendant municipality there was a sixth class city, currently a general law city (Gov.Code, § 34102), and, therefore, did not possess the supreme constitutional power over municipal affairs that the City enjoys. The same cannot be said, though, as regards the second of these three cases Newport Bldg. Corp. v. City of Santa Ana (1962) 210 Cal.App.2d 771, 26 Cal.Rptr. 797 as there the defendant was a chartered city. (Id. at p. 776, 26 Cal.Rptr. 797.) In that case the plaintiff successfully challenged the validity of a residential subdivision license fee of $50 per lot to be paid into "the Park and Firehouse Acquisition and Construction Fund" upon the basis that the Subdivision Map Act covered the whole subject of subdivision regulation except for the part pertaining to design and improvement. (Id. at pp. 774, 777, 26 Cal.Rptr. at p. 799.) In the third case, Santa Clara County Contractors, Etc. Assn. v. City of Santa Clara (1965) 232 Cal.App.2d 564, 43 Cal.Rptr. 86, the court held that a subdivision ordinance imposing fees of $25 for each dwelling or apartment unit up to a maximum of $100 for each one-fifth of an acre, and $8.50 for each trailer space, both fees to be paid into a "Capital Outlay Recreational Fund," did not serve its stated purpose of supplementing the Subdivision Map Act in order to insure local conformity therewith. (Id. at pp. 571-572, 43 Cal.Rptr. 86.) Instead these fees were held to be contrary to the terms of the Subdivision Map Act and the fact that the defendant municipality was a chartered city was held to be without consequence. (Id. at p. 575, 43 Cal.Rptr. 86.) The court treated the fees as a nonmunicipal matter of statewide concern within an area that the general law (the Subdivision Map Act) had occupied completely. (Id. at pp. 576, 580, 43 Cal.Rptr. 86.)

It should be noted that two of these three cases involved municipal ordinances enacted expressly pursuant to the supplemental authority delegated to local agencies in the Subdivision Map Act itself. As already noted, the municipal tax ordinance before us does not fall into this category. The third case involved a subdivision fee rather than a subdivision tax, but the court in that case made it clear that the label for the charge was of no consequence since municipalities could not impose any fees that were not authorized expressly or impliedly by the Subdivision Map Act. (See Newport Bldg. Corp. v. City of Santa Ana, supra, 210 Cal.App.2d at pp. 776-777, 26 Cal.Rptr. 797.)

1 We cannot agree with the preemptive effect given the Subdivision Map Act in these three cases. The Act quite obviously does not occupy the entire field of subdivision regulation to the exclusion of local agencies. Furthermore, according to Bishop v. City of San Jose, supra, 1 Cal.3d at page 63, 81 Cal.Rptr. 465, 460 P.2d 137, the Legislature may not determine what constitutes a municipal affair and may not convert such an affair into a matter of statewide concern simply by enacting a statute applicable to a particular subject. (See also Sonoma County Organization of Public Employees v. County of Sonoma (1979) 23 Cal.3d 296, 316, 152 Cal.Rptr. 903, 591 P.2d 1; San Francisco Labor Council v. Regents of University of California (1980) 26 Cal.3d 785, 790, 163 Cal.Rptr. 460, 608 P.2d 277.) Local taxation has long been universally regarded as a matter generally of purely...