City of Torrance v. Transitional Living Centers for Los Angeles, Inc.

• Citation: 30 Cal.3d 516,638 P.2d 1304,179 Cal.Rptr. 907
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (California)
• Decision Date: 18 January 1982
• Parties: , 638 P.2d 1304 CITY OF TORRANCE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. TRANSITIONAL LIVING CENTERS FOR LOS ANGELES, INC., Defendant and Respondent. L.A. 31407.

Page 907

179 Cal.Rptr. 907

30 Cal.3d 516, 638 P.2d 1304

CITY OF TORRANCE, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. TRANSITIONAL LIVING CENTERS FOR LOS ANGELES, INC., Defendant and Respondent.

L.A. 31407.

Supreme Court of California.

Jan. 18, 1982.

Stanley E. Remelmeyer, City Atty., and William G. Quale, Deputy City Atty., for plaintiff and appellant.

Quan, Cohen, Kurahashi, Hsieh & Scholtz, Kenneth P. Scholtz and John E. McDermott, Los Angeles, for defendant and respondent.

Erich P. Wise, Long Beach, James Preis, Newport Beach, and Mary S. Burdick, Los Angeles, as amici curiae on behalf of defendant and respondent.

RICHARDSON, Justice.

This case involves the interaction of a municipal zoning ordinance and section 5120 of the Welfare and Institutions Code which favors local care and treatment of mental patients. In its complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief, the City of Torrance (City) seeks to prevent Transitional Living Centers for Los Angeles (TLC), a nonprofit corporation, from maintaining a facility for mental patients in an area classified as an R-2 zone. City appeals from a trial court order dissolving a temporary restraining order and denying a preliminary injunction. We affirm the trial court's ruling.

In December 1971 City granted to the owners of property at 18312 Mansel Avenue in City a conditional use permit which authorized the operation of a board and care home for the aged. Thereafter, in June 1979, TLC entered into a contract with the County of Los Angeles for the furnishing of transitional community-based residential and rehabilitative services for mentally disordered persons. In furtherance of its contract obligations TLC leased the Mansel Avenue property for a facility serving 16 such handicapped persons. The contract committed TLC to "provide suitable care and rehabilitation in the least restrictive settings to persons no longer requiring hospitalization related to their mental disability, to improve their functional capacity, ... (and) to provide ongoing support ...."

In August 1979, TLC filed with City an application for a "free license" to operate a "Social Rehabilitation Residential Facility" on Mansel Avenue. Simultaneously, TLC sought and ultimately obtained from the California Department of Social Services a permit to operate on the site a social rehabilitation facility to serve 16 mentally disordered adults, which number was subsequently reduced to 15.

City thereupon filed its action seeking injunctive and declaratory relief, and claiming that TLC had violated City's zoning laws. The gravamen of City's complaint was that the proposed facility was not authorized by local or state law or by the preexisting conditional use permit issued by City to the owners and that the planned use of the property would constitute a public nuisance. City sought the injunction against TLC's planned use of the premises and general declaratory relief establishing the statutory authority for City's zoning restrictions on homes of the type contemplated by TLC. (Welf. & Inst.Code, §§ 5115, 5116, 5120; Health & Saf.Code, div. 2, ch. 3.)

After a hearing, the trial court dissolved a temporary restraining order previously issued and denied the preliminary injunction. City appeals.

In considering the central issue in the case, we reaffirm the rule that the grant or denial of a preliminary injunction lies within the sound discretion of the trial court and we do not disturb its decision in the absence of a showing that such discretion has been abused. (Continental Baking Co. v. Katz (1968) 68 Cal.2d 512, 527-528, 67 Cal.Rptr. 761, 439 P.2d 889.)

I. Section 5120

Our inquiry is directed first at section 5120 which was enacted in 1971 and amended in 1972. The section reads, in its entirety, as follows: "It is the policy of this state ... that the care and treatment of mental patients be provided in the local community. In order to achieve uniform statewide implementation of the policies of this act, it is necessary to establish the statewide policy that, notwithstanding any other provision of law, no city or county shall discriminate in the enactment, enforcement, or administration of any zoning laws, ordinances, or rules and regulations between the use of property for the treatment of general hospital or nursing home patients and the use of property for the psychiatric care and treatment of patients, both inpatient and outpatient. (P) Health facilities for inpatient and outpatient psychiatric care and treatment shall be permitted in any area zoned for hospitals or nursing homes, or in which hospitals and nursing homes are permitted by conditional use permit." (Amended language in italics.)

It will readily be seen that section 5120 establishes a strong statewide policy favoring local community treatment of mental patients as opposed to distant, regional, or institutional care. The section prohibits local discrimination against such treatment and authorizes local psychiatric care and treatment facilities in those areas where hospitals or nursing homes are permitted either by zoning ordinances or conditional use permits.

Against the foregoing general law, we juxtapose the Torrance Municipal Code (Code). As noted, the Mansel Avenue facility is in an R-2 zone, in which are conditionally permitted "Rest homes, convalescent homes, guest homes and homes for the aged...." In contrast, "(h)ospitals, sanitariums and mental hospitals," "(i)nstitutions for the treatment of alcoholics, mental hygiene homes ...," "(n)ursing homes, specialized homes for geriatrics and convalescent hospitals ..." are permitted only in zones other than R-2. (Code, § 95.3.9.)

It is clear that section 5120 does not demonstrate a legislative intent to extend complete state preemption over local zoning control of larger facilities for the mentally disturbed. In contrast, section 5115 represents such a comprehensive preemption affecting facilities with six or fewer patients specifically expressing "... the policy of this state ... that mentally and physically handicapped persons are entitled to live in normal residential surroundings and should not be excluded therefrom because of their disability." (Subd. (a).) To effect this general purpose, section 5116, referring to state authorized, certified or licensed facilities for six or less mentally disordered persons, directs that "Such homes shall be a permitted use in all residential zones, including, but not limited to, residential zones for single-family dwellings." In interpreting this section as completely preempting local regulation of such facilities in residential zones, the court in City of Los Angeles v. Department of Health (1976) 63 Cal.App.3d 473, 480, 133 Cal.Rptr. 771, observed, "The consequences of placement, treatment, and, hopefully, return of the handicapped to a productive and respected place in society is a subject that transcends municipal boundaries." (See Health & Saf.Code, § 1566 et seq. specifying limitations on local regulations (added Stats.1978, ch. 891, § 3, p. 2801).) Sections 5115, 5116, and 5120 are parts of the same regulatory scheme.

A contemporaneous commentator echoed a similar conclusion in assessing the purposes of the amendments to section 5120: "Previously, Section 5120 applied only to areas which were zoned for hospital use. By means of the conditional use permit local communities were able to allow hospitals in areas not zoned specifically for hospital use. This effectively precluded construction of mental treatment facilities since the area was not zoned for hospitals. The effect of Chapter 559 is to eliminate the conditional use permit as a means of preventing the establishment of mental treatment facilities in the local community." (Selected 1972 California Legislation, 4 Pacific L.J. (1973) 211, 595-596.) The comment further concluded that nursing home use had been included in the amendment "apparently to make more areas available for the construction of mental treatment facilities and to prevent further circumvention of Section 5120 by local communities." (Id., at p. 596.)

We find significance in the fact that the amendments to section 5120 were rendered immediately effective, indicating a sense of legislative urgency. The Legislature emphasized that "Unless health facilities which care for and treat mental patients are immediately treated on the same basis as other health facilities with respect to zoning, it will be impossible to provide for the care and treatment of mental patients in their local communities." (Stats.1972, ch. 559, § 2, p. 961.) It seems self-evident that in declaring an urgency the Legislature intended to promote and encourage the treatment of mental patients within a community by limiting the ability of municipalities to discriminate, through zoning restrictions, against facilities serving the mentally ill. Although the legislation authorized some local regulation of facilities serving more than six residents, this authority did not permit the exclusion or regulation of facilities serving the mentally ill from areas which otherwise allowed treatment of the physically ill or handicapped, even if only by conditional permit.

We now examine the institutional definitions of section 5120 and City's zoning ordinance.

a.) "Health Facilities."

Focusing on the last sentence of section 5120, which permits "health facilities" where hospitals or nursing homes are allowed, City contends that the Mansel operation is not a "health facility" and therefore is not exempt from its zoning regulation.

City points to section 1250 of the Health and Safety Code which, for purposes of chapter 2 of division 2 of that code, defines "health facility" as "any facility, place or building which is organized, maintained, and operated for the diagnosis, care, prevention, and treatment of human illness, physical or mental, including convalescence and rehabilitation ... for one or more persons, to which such persons are admitted for a 24-hour...