Morehart v. County of Santa Barbara

• Decision Date: 12 May 1994
• Docket Number: No. S030829,S030829
• Citation: 7 Cal.4th 725,872 P.2d 143,29 Cal.Rptr.2d 804
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: , 872 P.2d 143 John M. MOREHART et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA et al., Defendants and Appellants.

Page 804

29 Cal.Rptr.2d 804

7 Cal.4th 725, 872 P.2d 143

John M. MOREHART et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. COUNTY OF SANTA BARBARA et al., Defendants and Appellants.

No. S030829.

Supreme Court of California,

In Bank.

May 12, 1994.

As Modified May 26, 1994.

David Nawi, County Counsel, Stephen Shane Stark, Chief Deputy County Counsel, and Colleen Parent Beall, Deputy County Counsel, for defendants and appellants.

Daniel E. Lungren, Atty. Gen., Roderick E. Walston, Chief Asst. Atty. Gen., Jan S. Stevens, Asst. Atty. Gen., Jamee Jordan Patterson, Deputy Atty. Gen., Andrew B. Gustafson, Asst. County Counsel, Ventura, and Sally Grant Disco, Los Angeles, as amici curiae on behalf of defendants and appellants.

Hollister & Brace, Richard C. Monk, Santa Barbara, Lascher & Lascher, Wendy C. Lascher and Susan B. Lascher, Ventura, for plaintiffs and respondents.

Cox, Castle & Nicholson, Kenneth B. Bley, Los Angeles, Ellman, Burke, Hoffman & Johnson, Howard N. Ellman, Michael J. Burke, San Francisco, McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, Daniel J. Curtin, Jr., Robert E. Merritt, Jr., Maria P. Rivera, Walnut Creek, Clement, Fitzpatrick & Kenworthy, Clayton E. Clement, Santa Rosa, Nossaman, Gunther, Knox & Elliott, James P. Corn, Sacramento, Baker & McKenzie, Timothy A. Tosta, Kerry Shapiro, San Francisco, William M. Pfeiffer, Judith K. Herzberg, Los Angeles, Ronald A. Zumbrun, James S. Burling, Orrin F. Finch, Sacramento, Dun & Martinek, David E. Martinek and Deborah A. Boyd, Eureka, as amici curiae on behalf of plaintiffs and respondents.

LUCAS, Chief Justice.

The Subdivision Map Act (Gov.Code, § 66410 et seq.) provides that contiguous parcels of land are not automatically merged by virtue of being held by the same owner. Such parcels "may be merged by local agencies only in accordance with the authority and procedures prescribed by this article" (id., §§ 66451.10-66451.21)," which "provide[s] the sole and exclusive authority for local agency initiated merger of contiguous parcels." (Id., § 66451.10, subd. (b); all section references are to the Government Code unless otherwise indicated.)

Without following those statutory procedures, defendants County of Santa Barbara and its Board of Supervisors (county) amended the county's zoning ordinance to require that certain parcels be of a specified minimum lot size before being developed, unless the parcel was "held in separate ownership" on the date the rezoning was initiated. The amendments further require that the undersized parcels be combined (i.e., merged) in order to comply to the maximum extent possible with current density standards (see fn. 2, post ).

Plaintiffs applied for a coastal development permit to build a residence on their undersized parcel. The county denied the application on the ground that plaintiffs could recombine their parcel with adjoining parcels. In plaintiffs' action against the county, seeking multiple kinds of relief, the trial court granted judgment for plaintiffs declaring that the county's recombination requirement was preempted by section 66451.10 and related provisions of the Subdivision Map Act, and ordering issuance of a writ of mandate directing the county to set the denial of plaintiffs' application aside. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that even though the act provides the exclusive means by which a county may impose a merger of parcels to control their sale, lease, or financing, the act does not prevent the county's zoning law from requiring merger as a condition to permitting development. We granted review to consider that holding.

Initially we are faced with a question of appealability. The judgment appealed from resolved fewer than all of plaintiffs' causes of action, but the Court of Appeal treated it as appealable under authority of a line of Court of Appeal decisions holding that an appeal can be taken from a judgment on causes of action that have been severed from other remaining, separate and independent causes of action. We shall conclude that the judgment was not appealable but that because of unusual circumstances, including the statewide importance of the issues, we should determine the correctness of the judgment as a basis for determining whether to direct the Court of Appeal to issue a peremptory writ to the trial court.

On the merits, we agree with the Court of Appeal that the Subdivision Map Act's exclusive procedures apply by their literal terms only to mergers imposed to control the sale, lease, or financing of the merged parcels. The statutory context and history, however, indicate that section 66451.11 was intended to prescribe the standards by which local agencies can impose mergers for purposes of development as well, and reflects a paramount state concern for uniformity in those standards. We shall conclude, therefore, that although the act does not alter a county's power to prescribe minimum lot sizes in zoning ordinances, the act does impliedly preempt any local zoning ordinance provision that purports to require, as a condition to issuance of a development permit, a merger of parcels that the county could not compel under section 66451.11. Accordingly, the trial court correctly adjudged the county ordinances to be invalid, and the judgment of the Court of Appeal must be reversed with directions to dismiss the appeal.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs John and Frances Morehart own block 132, a parcel of about 3.7 acres shown on the map entitled "Plan of Naples, Seventeen Miles West of Santa Barbara Cal.," filed in the county records in 1888. The Naples Townsite (Naples), comprising about 900 acres, appears on that map, as well as on the official county maps of 1888 and 1909, as a grid of lots, blocks, and streets that in fact were never developed. In 1977, a major portion of Naples was purchased by Morehart Land Company, a California corporation of which 49 percent of the stock is held by plaintiffs and 51 percent by their nine adult children. At that time, the county had zoned Naples as agricultural, requiring 10 acres for each dwelling unit. In March 1981, the California Coastal Commission approved the county's local coastal plan, which increased the amount of land required for each dwelling in Naples to 100 acres.

On July 2, 1984, the county adopted two resolutions regulating "antiquated subdivisions," defined as those laid out on maps filed with the county prior to 1893, the year of California's first Subdivision Map Act (Stats.1893, ch. 80; see Curtin et al., Cal. Subdivision Map Act Practice (Cont.Ed.Bar 1987) § 1, p. 2.) The county resolutions (Nos. 84-298 and 84-299) initiated the rezoning of 10 such subdivisions, including Naples, into an "AS Antiquated Subdivision overlay district." The resolutions stated that "the adoption of [that rezoning] will require that lots ... must be combined to meet minimum lot size requirements when application for a land use permit is made, except where such combinations are impossible because of the fact that lots are held in separate ownership prior to the date of [the] resolution initiating [the] rezoning." They further declared that the subdivisions' parcels would be eligible for issuance of a certificate of compliance (see § 66499.35; fn. 1, post ) with an attached warning that the parcel may be subject to rezoning requiring a minimum lot size "unless the lots were held in separate ownership prior to [that] date." The resolutions thus established a cutoff date of July 2, 1984 (the date of their adoption), prior to which a parcel must be separately held to qualify for the exception to the minimum lot size requirement.

On June 28, 1984, four days before the cutoff date, Morehart Land Company made numerous conveyances of Naples parcels to plaintiffs, their children, and Morehart family corporations, in such a manner as to avoid common ownership of contiguous parcels. Thus, on the cutoff date of July 2, 1984, each of the eight parcels adjoining plaintiffs' block 132 was owned by one of plaintiffs' adult children, or by a corporation wholly owned by plaintiffs, or by Morehart Land Company.

On December 19, 1986, the county issued plaintiffs a certificate of compliance (see § 66499.35 ¹) stating in pertinent part: "The parcel covered by this Certificate of Compliance is a legal parcel having been created in 1888 in compliance with the provisions of the California Subdivision Map Act and at that time there was no [county] ordinance enacted pursuant thereto. This parcel is not a developable building site until such time as the [county] determines that the parcel is properly served by domestic water, wastewater disposal, road access, and drainage and protected against flooding, bluff erosion, and soils problems." Similar certificates were issued between 1979 and 1987 for numerous other Naples parcels.

In September 1987, plaintiffs' application for a coastal development permit to build a single-family dwelling on block 132 was submitted to the county's resource management department. The application was rejected in May 1988 on the ground that because the 3.7-acre blocks adjoining block 132 were owned by plaintiffs' family members or corporations, recombination of the blocks appeared feasible so as to more nearly comply with the required 100-acre minimum lot size. Accordingly, block 132 was refused recognition as a parcel "held in separate ownership" under the "antiquated subdivision" resolutions of 1984. Plaintiffs' successive appeals to the county planning commission and to the board of supervisors were denied in November 1988 and February 1989 respectively.

Meanwhile, in August 1988, the county formally enacted two ordinances, Nos. 3718 and 3719, which establish the "AS Antiquated Subdivision overlay district," encompassing Naples, and require that parcels for which a coastal development permit is issued "be combined in order to comply to the maximum extent possible with current density standards." ² The Coastal Commission...