Hazon-Iny Development, Inc. v. City of Santa Monica

• Decision Date: 19 January 1982
• Docket Number: HAZON-INY
• Parties: DEVELOPMENT, INC., a California Corporation, Petitioner and Appellant, v. CITY OF SANTA MONICA, Santa Monica Rent Control Board, et al., Respondents. A.A.V., a Limited Partnership, Petitioner and Appellant, v. CITY OF SANTA MONICA, Santa Monica Rent Control Board, et al., Respondents. 828 ARIZONA STREET PROPERTIES, Petitioner and Appellant, v. CITY OF SANTA MONICA, Santa Monica Rent Control Board, et al., Respondents. Natale URBANO and Juliette Urbano, Petitioners and Appellants, v. CITY OF SANTA MONICA, Santa Monica Rent Control Board, et al., Respondents. Civ. 61773, Civ. 61777, Civ. 61787 and Civ. 61790.
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 860

179 Cal.Rptr. 860

128 Cal.App.3d 1

HAZON-INY DEVELOPMENT, INC., a California Corporation, Petitioner and Appellant, v. CITY OF SANTA MONICA, Santa Monica Rent Control Board, et al., Respondents.

A.A.V., a Limited Partnership, Petitioner and Appellant, v. CITY OF SANTA MONICA, Santa Monica Rent Control Board, et al., Respondents.

828 ARIZONA STREET PROPERTIES, Petitioner and Appellant, v. CITY OF SANTA MONICA, Santa Monica Rent Control Board, et al., Respondents.

Natale URBANO and Juliette Urbano, Petitioners and Appellants, v. CITY OF SANTA MONICA, Santa Monica Rent Control Board, et al., Respondents.

Civ. 61773, Civ. 61777, Civ. 61787 and Civ. 61790.

Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 4, California.

Jan. 19, 1982.

Rehearing Denied March 11, 1982.

Hearing Denied April 22, 1982.

William A. Ross and Steve I. Kaplan, Los Angeles, for petitioners and appellants.

Robert M. Myers, City Atty. and Stephen Shane Stark, Asst. City Atty., for respondent City of Santa Monica.

Michael Heumann, Senior Atty., and Joel Martin Levy, Santa Monica, for respondent Santa Monica Rent Control Board.

WEIL, Associate Justice. ^*

Petitioner Hazon-Iny Development, Inc. (hereinafter "Hazon") appeals from a judgment denying its petition for a writ of mandate commanding respondents City of Santa Monica, its mayor and city councilmen (all of whom are collectively hereinafter sometimes referred to as "City") and respondent William Rome, the chief building officer (hereinafter "Rome"), to reinstate a building permit previously issued to Hazon or to issue a new building permit or, in lieu of doing either, to approve a final subdivision map submitted by Hazon without the necessity of Hazon fulfilling one of the conditions of tentative tract map approval that the dwelling units in the building be reduced in number from 14 to 10. Petitioners A.A.V. (hereinafter "AAV"), 828 Arizona Street Properties (hereinafter "828"), and Natale and Juliette Urbano (hereinafter "Urbanos") appeal from similar judgments denying their requested writs of mandate that would have compelled respondents to either issue building permits to them or, in lieu thereof, approve their respective final subdivision maps without the necessity of any of them complying with the tentative subdivision map approval condition that the number of dwelling units in each of their respective apartment buildings be reduced. Because common questions of law are involved in each appeal, the four separate appeals have been consolidated.

PROCEDURAL AND FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On June 5, 1978, the Planning Commission of City approved a tentative subdivision map submitted by petitioner 828 for the condominium conversion of an 11-unit apartment building. The approval was conditioned upon, among other things, the reduction in the number of dwelling units from 11 to 9 together with various other conditions. Similar tentative tract map approvals containing similar conditions reducing the number of dwelling units in their apartment buildings that were being converted to condominiums were obtained by the Urbanos on February 5, 1979, by AAV on March 5, 1979, and by Hazon on March 19, 1979.

On April 9, 1979, City issued a building permit to Hazon to authorize the construction incident to reducing the number of units in its building. The next day, April 10, 1979, the Santa Monica City electorate adopted Chapter XVIII to the Santa Monica City Charter known as the "Rent Control Charter Amendment" (hereinafter "RCCA") which prohibits removal of controlled rental units by demolition, conversion or other means without obtaining approval of such removal from the Santa Monica Rent Control Board (hereinafter "RCB"). ¹

Thereafter, City enacted ordinance No. 1127 (CCS) on June 29, 1979, for the purpose of codifying, clarifying and implementing the rent control initiative into the new rent control law. Said rent control law contains provisions under which persons seeking vested right exemptions may apply for such through the new RCB. ²

Thereafter on July 2, 1979, respondent City issued a "stop notice" for work being done under the building permit previously issued to Hazon. The permit subsequently expired. According to the declaration of respondent Rome filed in this and other proceedings, it is the present policy of respondent City "that no new building permits for the purpose of combining units as part of a condominium conversion will be issued unless the Rent Control Board has given its approval, either through a removal permit issued under section 1803(t) of the Rent Control Act, or through a vested rights determination made pursuant to chapter 6 of the Board's rules and regulations."

Appellant Hazon filed a claim for vested right determination with the RCB that was denied on July 19, 1979. Judicial review of that determination has never been sought. Petitioner Hazon made demand on respondent City to reinstate its building permit on January 2, 1980; said demand was denied and petitioner Hazon filed suit January 11, 1980. Hazon's tentative tract map expired March 18, 1980.

None of the other three appellants ever obtained the building permits that were necessary to reduce the number of units in their respective apartment buildings.

The Urbanos applied to have their final subdivision map placed on respondent City Council's agenda for approval; such request Petitioner 828's application for a one-year extension of its tentative tract map was approved on May 21, 1979, with the added condition that it obtain RCB approval prior to filing its final tract map or else have established a legally recognized vested right. Thereafter its application for a building permit was denied on November 28, 1979, for lack of prior RCB approval. Thereafter 828 filed an application for vested right determination with the RCB but withdrew the application on January 10, 1980, the day that it was scheduled to be heard. Its petition was filed February 14, 1980; its tentative tract map expired May 20, 1980.

was denied on November 14, 1979, and they were told to first obtain a removal permit from the RCB. RCB denied their vested right claim on January 8, 1980, and no judicial review was sought of such denial. Respondent Rome denied an application for a building permit on January 22, 1980, for lack of RCB approval. On February 4, 1980, the City Planning Commission denied the Urbanos' request for an extension of their tentative tract map which expired on February 5, 1980. On the same day the Urbanos filed their petition for writ of mandate.

Appellant AAV applied for a building permit June 4, 1979. Respondent Rome denied said application on February 29, 1980, for lack of RCB approval. The record before us does not disclose whether appellant AAV ever applied to the RCB for either a removal permit or a vested rights determination. Said appellant filed its petition on February 4, 1980, the day its tentative tract map expired. AAV submitted to the trial court a declaration indicating that it had expended $35,000 in replacing, repairing or upgrading various components of the subject premises "in anticipation of the approval of the condominium conversion application concerning the subject property and pursuant to the conditions of approval of tentative tract 36459, ..." The trial court found that petitioners had expended said monies for cosmetic and minor repairs and painting of the existing building and swimming pool in anticipation of receiving and in reliance on tentative tract map approval, but that petitioners did not incur the major expense of reducing the number of existing units by almost one-third from 22 to 16, which reduction was required to fulfill the conditions imposed on the tentative tract map.

ISSUE ON APPEAL

When a landowner holding a tentative tract map conditioned on reducing the number of dwelling units in a proposed condominium conversion is required by subsequently enacted legislation to obtain a permit from a newly created rent control board authorizing the removal of a controlled rental unit, is such requirement an impermissible impairment of the subdivision process? For the reasons hereinafter stated, we conclude it is not.

DISCUSSION

Appellants' principal contention is that local government may not enforce subsequently enacted legislation to the possible detriment of a developer who is already the possessor of a tentative tract map.

Appellants rely on Youngblood v. Board of Supervisors (1978) 22 Cal.3d 644, 150 Cal.Rptr. 242, 586 P.2d 556, and El Patio v. Permanent Rent Control (1980) 110 Cal.App.3d 915, 168 Cal.Rptr. 276, for the proposition that the application of the subsequently enacted removal permit requirement to their projects constitutes the improper addition of a condition of approval to their respective final maps, which condition did not exist when their tentative maps were approved prior to adoption of the charter amendment.

In Youngblood the San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved a tentative subdivision map for one acre residential lots. Shortly thereafter, the board revised the land use element of the county general plan requiring two acre minimum lot sizes for the property in question. The Supreme Court in Youngblood held that the board acted properly in approving the final map of one acre lots on the grounds that the final map was required only to conform to the general plan in effect when the tentative map was approved. The court's reasoning was explained as follows:

"The purpose of (Bus. & Prof. Code) Section 11549.6, as we perceive it, was to confirm that the date when the tentative map comes before the governing body for approval is the crucial date when that body should decide whether to permit the proposed subdivision. Once the tentative map is approved, the developer often must expend substantial sums to comply with the conditions attached to that approval. These expenditures will result in the construction of improvements consistent with the proposed ...