Construction Ind. Ass'n of Sonoma Cty. v. City of Petaluma
| Decision Date | 26 April 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. C-73 663 LHB.,C-73 663 LHB. |
| Citation | 375 F. Supp. 574 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of California |
| Parties | CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF SONOMA COUNTY, a California nonprofit corporation, et al., Plaintiffs, v. The CITY OF PETALUMA, a California Charter City, et al., Defendants. |
Arata, Misuraca & Clement, Malcolm A. Misuraca, James L. Beyers, Craig M. Thomas, Santa Rosa, Cal., for plaintiffs; Joseph D. Joiner, Berkeley, Cal., of counsel.
Robert T. Anderson, Oakland, Cal., Edouard E. Robert, Petaluma City Atty., Petaluma, Cal., for defendants.
This action was heard without a jury from January 14 through January 18, 1974. Arata, Misuraca & Clement, Malcolm A. Misuraca, James L. Beyers, Craig M. Thomas and Joseph Joiner, of counsel, appeared for the plaintiffs. Sturgis, Den-Dulk, Douglass & Anderson, Robert Anderson and Edouard E. Robert, of counsel, appeared for the defendants. The action was tried, submitted without argument; and the court made its oral decision (in favor of plaintiffs) at the conclusion of trial. The court finds from the evidence that:
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. The city of Petaluma, California, is within modern-day commuting distance of San Francisco and is a part of the San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan region. Until recently, Petaluma was known primarily for its dairy and poultry resources.
2. The defendants, Helen Putnam, Robert A. Brunner, John W. Cavanagh, Robert A. Daly, James L. Harberson, Fred V. Mattei, and William A. Perry, are the members of the Petaluma City Council. All elements and employees of the defendant city are under their control.
3. Through the early 1960's Petaluma's government operated under the prevailing assumption that "growth is good." Its planning provided generously for housing "developments" and eventually permitted the eastern portion of the city to become densely populated by a sea of tract homes. Growth was uncontrolled.
4. In 1962, the city officials of Petaluma studied its growth patterns and concluded that, if current trends continued, by 1985 the city would have a population of 77,000; it would cease to be a "rural" community. Subsequent growth rates confirmed the predictions; and Petaluma's population increased dramatically until the early 1970's. From 1964 through 1971, the following numbers of housing units were completed in Petaluma:
1964 ........ 270
1965 ........ 440
1966 ........ 321
1967 ........ 234
1968 ........ 379
1969 ........ 358
1970 ........ 591
1971 ........ 891
5. In 1970 and 1971, the city approved approximately 2,000 units for future construction. This number of units represents the fair measure of the market and demographic demands for housing in Petaluma. Since the 1970-1971 period, market demand has been and continues to be substantially in excess of five hundred units per year.
6. With the accelerated growth figures of 1970 and 1971, the citizens of Petaluma began to question earlier judgments about the desirability of growth for its own sake; and they set about quite openly to curb the population growth in their city. In early 1971, a "citizen's committee", aided by a firm of professional planners, drafted a suggested "policy on growth" for Petaluma. One tool used in arriving at their statement of policy included the sending of questionnaires to approximately 10,000 residents of the city. The great majority of the returned questionnaires indicated that the citizens of Petaluma wanted to limit the increase of future residents.
8. The city council implemented the official growth policy of June, 1971, and adopted the "Petaluma Plan," which includes, among other items, the following ordinances:
(a) Environmental Design Plans and Maps, Petaluma Resolution No. 6008 N. C.S.
(b) A Residential Development System, Petaluma Resolution No. 6113 N.C. S.
(c) The Petaluma Housing Element, Petaluma Resolution No. 6126 N.C.S.
(d) A proposed breakdown of approximately 2,500 units to be allocated by the plan for the years 1973 through 1977.
(e) Rules and Regulations for business of the Residential Development Board (the "RDEB").
9. The city council intended in enacting the "Petaluma Plan" to limit Petaluma's demographic and market growth rate in housing and in the immigration of new residents. The plan did have the intended effect in a number of respects, of which the following are the most significant:
(a) The city limited new housing units to approximately one-third to one-half of the demographic and market demand of the 1970-1971 period.
(b) The city created an "urban extension line," i. e., an ultimate boundary intended to mark the outer limits of the city's expansion for twenty or more years. Within this perimeter, the city used density limitation and other techniques to set a maximum population of the city at approximately 55,000 as against the 1962 projection of 77,000 by 1985. Such a limitation is a substantial interference with demographic and market demand for housing and the immigration of new residents. The 1962 general plan estimate of 77,000 residents in 1985 was a reasonable estimate of those demands on the housing market, and it continued to be reasonable in 1970 and 1971.
(c) The area within the "urban extension line" was sufficient at the city's chosen densities for growth for the twenty year planning period only at the 500 unit annual limitation, not at natural demographic and market demand rates. The effect of the "urban extension line" is to limit "excessive" population growth, which limitation was the defendants' purpose. If the 500 unit rate limit were removed, the limit on population set up by the "urban extension line" would still act as a substantial deterrent to travel and commerce.
(d) The city refused, for fifteen or more years, to annex or to extend city facilities to land outside the "urban extension line." The city solicited the assistance of the county and the Local Agency Formation Commission ("LAFCO") to prohibit residential growth outside of the "urban extension line." Thus, the extension line inhibited immigration not only into Petaluma, but also into its surrounding areas.
(e) Permits for the building of the limited number of units are granted and/or evaluated by the residential development evaluation board (the "RDEB"). The rating system employed is an intricate one, which establishes a competitive situation between the proposed applications. Although we do not understand plaintiffs to attack the rating concept itself, they do contend that the application of this particular system's terms resembles a "Catch-22" type of operation; apparently nobody really knows what regulations will be applied, or how, or by whom. Plaintiffs argue that the merit rating system, as employed by these defendants, is actually a hazing system intended to discourage unwanted builders from acquiring permission to build.
10. Although the defendants contend that the "Petaluma Plan" is intended to last only through 1977, official attempts have been made to perpetuate the plan through 1990 at lest. Such attempts include the annual 500 unit building limitation, the urban extension line, and the limitation of available facilities. For example, the city has purposefully limited its contract with the Sonoma County Water Agency, a major supplier of water to the city, to 9.8 million gallons of water per day through the year 1990. This flow is sufficient for a population of 55,000. By limiting its public facilities, the city intended to serve a population lower than the market and demographic growth rates would produce, to restrict the travel of new residents into Petaluma, and consequently to limit the number of housing units that might be constructed.
11. Housing in Petaluma and elsewhere in the San Francisco metropolitan region is produced substantially through goods, services and communication devices in interstate commerce.
12. The "Petaluma Plan" prevented the construction of approximately one-half to two-thirds of housing units that market and demographic growth forces would have demanded for Petaluma during the 1973-1977 period and the subsequent extension of the plan into 1990. The people in need and desirous of housing were and will be forced to turn to other areas within the region for accommodation. Such persons consist of Californians as well as out-of-state immigrants.
13. Although defendants contended that, as a matter of law, this court may not inquire into the motives for the implementation of the growth limitation policy, they have introduced evidence which is designed to prove that the growth curbs were imposed because of the inadequacy of the city's water and sewage treatment facilities and not to keep others from moving into Petaluma. Without intending to resolve the initial legal position taken on the point, we find that the assertions made are not true.
When the "Petaluma Plan" was conceived in 1971, the city faced no immediate, serious or unusual difficulty in using or expanding the capacity of its public facilities to serve existing demographic and market growth rates in housing. The city could have continued to meet the demands on such facilities made by the growth rate trends of 1970 and 1971 without unusual strain upon such facilities. The city's reference to such alleged inadequacies is no more than an excuse intended to...
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