City of Lafayette v. East Bay Mun. Utility Dist.

• Decision Date: 23 June 1993
• Docket Number: No. AO57840,AO57840
• Citation: 16 Cal.App.4th 1005,20 Cal.Rptr.2d 658
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: CITY OF LAFAYETTE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. EAST BAY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT, et al., Defendants and Appellants.

Page 658

20 Cal.Rptr.2d 658

16 Cal.App.4th 1005

CITY OF LAFAYETTE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. EAST BAY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT, et al., Defendants and Appellants.

No. AO57840.

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1, California.

June 23, 1993.

Robert B. Maddow, Verna P. Bromley, Office of Gen. Counsel, Oakland, Peter J. Busch, Ethan P. Schulman, Anne E. Mudge, Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Robertson & Falk, San Francisco, for defendants and appellants.

Gregory V. Moser, Weissburg and Aronson, San Diego, for amicus curiae Ass'n of California Water Agencies on behalf of defendants and appellants.

Charles J. Williams, Teresa L.

Highsmith, Williams & Woods, Martinez, for plaintiff and respondent.

Linda A. Callon, Gilroy City Atty., Russell J. Hanlon, Nicholas P. Petredis, Berliner Cohen, San Jose, for amici curiae on behalf of plaintiff and respondent.

NEWSOM, Associate Justice.

The East Bay Municipal Utility District (hereafter appellant or the District) is a municipal utilities district which provides water to customers in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, including the City of Lafayette (hereafter respondent or the City). The District owns property in the City on which it has operated a filter plant since 1929. The property, consisting of approximately 25 acres, is zoned single-family residential and designated in the City's General Plan as "public use" property, which provides for nonresidential use with approval in the form of a land use permit. The essential function of the filter plant has been to treat raw water for delivery to the District's customers. Existing facilities at the filter plant include filter beds, water storage tanks, equipment, sheds or yards, pumping plants, warehouses, chemical buildings and an office building.

The filter plant property lies within the "East Area," one of the four geographic areas of operation into which the District is divided, and includes the City. In 1983, the District began the process of expanding and improving facilities in the East Area to accommodate population growth and an attendant increased demand for water. The East Area Service Center has been located in Walnut Creek since 1962, and was considered inadequate for present needs. Various potential sites for a new East Area Service Center were identified and considered. The filter plant site in Lafayette, on 25 acres of property (hereafter the Lafayette Site), was found to satisfy all of the District's important criteria for location of the new East Area Service Center (hereafter EASC): a centralized location; a sufficiently large parcel of property; and a "public use" designation. Thus, in 1986, the Lafayette Site was designated as the District's preferred alternative for location of the EASC project.

The environmental review process for the EASC project commenced in 1988, and was quite extensive. In response to local opposition to the project, the District modified the original proposal by deleting the "watershed headquarters," thereby reducing the geographic area of the project to 3.8 acres, relocating parking and storage areas to the interior of the project area, redesigning driveways, adding landscaping, and providing an "acceleration lane" on Mount Diablo Boulevard. A former reduction in the scale of the project was also considered during the environmental review process, but rejected by the District as inefficient and incomplete. The final Environmental Impact Report (hereafter EIR) drafted by the District concluded that the EASC project could be built with insignificant adverse environmental impacts after implementation of identified mitigation measures. The adequacy of the final EIR was never challenged.

While the EIR process was proceeding, the District filed an application with the City for a land use permit for the EASC project. ¹ Although the City Planning Commission staff recommended approval of the permit as consistent with the "General Plan" and "not ... detrimental to the health, safety, and general welfare of the City," opposition to the project persisted. Following public hearings and unsuccessful attempts to mediate the controversy, on November 26, 1990, the City denied the District's application for a land use permit.

In response, on December 11, 1990, the District, acting under the authority of Government Code sections 53091 and 53096, ² enacted two resolutions which purportedly rendered "inapplicable" the City's zoning ordinance and approved the EASC project as described in the final EIR. The District made the following findings in support of the resolutions: "The proposed East Area Service Center Project is necessary to enable the District to operate and maintain its water transmission facilities in the East Area Service region"; "there is no feasible alternative to the proposed East Area Service Center project, and the proposed East Area Service Center site is the only feasible site which would enable the District to economically provide all its customers with an equal level of high quality water service and quickly respond to pipeline emergencies in East Area"; "the potentially significant effects of the proposed project will be mitigated to acceptable levels by the imposition of various mitigation measures ... discussed in the Final EIR;" "the City of Lafayette's Zoning Ordinance Code does not apply to this project pursuant to Government Code Sections 53091 and 53096, as the District's Reduced Scale East Area Service Center project is a facility for the transmission and storage of water and therefore exempt from local ordinances regulating location or construction of such facilities and, additionally, because this Board of Directors has rendered the City of Lafayette's Zoning Ordinance Code and all Sections thereof inapplicable to this project...."

The EASC project as approved by the District has the "primary function" of ensuring "proper and continued transmission of water to customers" by providing "corporation yard support and administration headquarters" for the District's water transmission and storage system in the East Area. "The project would consist primarily of materials storage, warehousing, vehicle maintenance facilities, administration buildings and parking." In the allotted 3.8 acres of space, the District proposes to construct a one-story office building with essential facilities for employees and an attached warehouse, a separate storage building with workshops, outside storage areas for necessary materials and equipment, and parking spaces for a peak staff of approximately 85 employees.

The "most important maintenance functions" of the employees stationed at the EASC project are maintenance and repair of the essential facilities in the East Area for the transmission of water to District customers. Duties of the employees at the EASC project will include inspection and repair of pipelines, valves and hydrants, maintenance work at filter plants, installation of emergency reservoir drain valves, maintenance of aqueducts and pumping plants, and response to emergency complaints by customers.

After the District's approval of the EASC project, the City filed a petition for writ of administrative mandamus and complaint for injunctive and declaratory relief. In this action, the City has challenged the District's two resolutions and seeks an order prohibiting the District from proceeding with the project without a land use permit from the City. Following a hearing, the trial court issued a "notice of decision" in which it found that the EASC project proposes facilities which "are not facilities for the production, generation, storage and transmission of water" within the meaning of the exception from the City's zoning ordinances provided by section 53091. The court further found that "although the proposed facilities are related to the storage and transmission of water, section 53096 does not exempt warehouses, administrative buildings, and automotive storage and repair buildings. To the extent the proposed facilities fall within these categories, they are subject to local zoning ordinances." (Emphasis added.) Judgment was entered in favor of the City on its causes of action for declaratory relief. ³ Thus, the District's resolutions were declared invalid, and the District was ordered bound by the City's denial of the land use permit for the EASC project.

In this appeal, the District makes two related arguments. First, the District contends that the EASC project encompasses "the location or construction of facilities for the production, generation, storage, or transmission of water" within the meaning of section 53091, and therefore is entitled to an absolute exemption from the City's zoning ordinances. In the alternative, the District maintains that the proposed facilities fall within the scope of the qualified exemption from city zoning ordinances found in section 53096, which in pertinent part provides: "(a) Notwithstanding any other provisions of this article, the governing board of a local agency, by vote of four-fifths of its members, may render a city or county zoning ordinance inapplicable to a proposed use of property if the local agency at a noticed public hearing determines by resolution that there is no feasible alternative to its proposal, except when the proposed use of the property by such local agency is for facilities not related to storage or transmission of water or electrical energy, including, but not limited to, warehouses, administrative buildings or automotive storage and repair buildings."

The parameters of the exemptions granted local agencies (such as the District) from city and county zoning ordinances under sections 53091 and 53096 have not been delineated, and so our task is to construe the statutes with the paramount objective of ascertaining the legislative intent. (Nickelsberg v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd. (1991) 54 Cal.3d 288, 294, 285 Cal.Rptr. 86, 814 P.2d 1328; Agresti v. Department of Motor...