Sea Ranch Ass'n v. CALIFORNIA COAST. ZONE CON. COM'N

• Decision Date: 13 January 1975
• Docket Number: No. C-74-1320 SW.,C-74-1320 SW.
• Citation: 396 F. Supp. 533
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California
• Parties: The SEA RANCH ASSOCIATION, etc., et al., Plaintiffs, v. The CALIFORNIA COASTAL ZONE CONSERVATION COMMISSION, et al., Defendants.

396 F. Supp. 533

The SEA RANCH ASSOCIATION, etc., et al., Plaintiffs, v. The CALIFORNIA COASTAL ZONE CONSERVATION COMMISSION, et al., Defendants.

No. C-74-1320 SW.

United States District Court, N. D. California.

January 13, 1975.

Malcolm A. Misuraca, Arata, Misuraca & Clement, Santa Rosa, Cal., for plaintiffs general.

L. M. Belden, Anderson, McDonald, Belden & Kelly, Santa Rosa, Cal., for plaintiff Melvin Burke.

John Roger Beers, Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., California Coastal Alliance, Inc., Palo Alto, Cal., for Sierra Club, Nat. Res. Def. Council & Calif. Coast. Alliance.

Donatas Januta, San Francisco, Cal., for State of California.

Michael R. Sherwood, San Francisco, Cal., for Sierra Club.

Before DUNIWAY, Circuit Judge, and EAST and WILLIAMS District Judges.

OPINION

DAVID W. WILLIAMS, District Judge:

STATEMENT OF FACTS

In November 1972, the Citizens of California passed the Coastal Zone Conservation Act by means of the initiative process. The Act is designed to preserve the "remaining natural and scenic resources of the coastal zone." California Public Resources Code, Sec. 27001.¹ The Act established a state commission and six regional commissions charged with the preparation of a land use plan for the California coastal zone and the control of further development in the coastal region pending completion of the plan. The Act states that this plan is to be completed by December 1975 and submitted to the state legislature for approval in 1976. The entire Act terminates 91 days after the adjournment of the 1976 California state legislature. Sec. 27650.

The provisions of the Act which are designed to control development during this interim period require that any person "wishing to perform any development" in the coastal region during this term must first obtain a permit from the appropriate regional commission. Sec. 27400.

It is this permit procedure which forms the controversy of this case.

Plaintiffs are eleven individual property owners at the Sea Ranch coastal development in Sonoma County and the Sea Ranch Association, a non-profit corporation representing all property owners at Sea Ranch. The Sea Ranch development is a vacation-home subdivision of single family residences. The Sea Ranch Association provides various services to member owners and holds title to a substantial amount of common-property area. At the time of the passage of the Coastal Zone Act, the Sea Ranch development was still under construction, some residences substantially completed, some under construction, and many not yet begun.

Pursuant to the Act, the state commission on June 19, 1974 granted the property owner plaintiffs permits to develop their property subject to certain conditions. The state commission's decision was made upon an appeal from a similar decision by the North Central Regional Commission.

The principal conditions required plaintiffs to:

1. Thin and trim trees planted by the developer which interfered with ocean views;

2. Develop a system of public access along the Sea Ranch development coastline;

3. Institute a program to monitor the cumulative effects of Sea Ranch development septic tanks; and

4. Initiate and carry out a program to monitor the effects of Sea Ranch development water diversions on the water flow and fish life in the Gualala River.

The state commission stated that in the event that the Sea Ranch Association would not agree to implement these conditions, an individual applicant could begin construction by depositing $1500 into an account to be established by the regional commission. The funds would be used by the regional commission to "mitigate the environmental problems" which were the subject of the conditions.

Plaintiffs dissatisfied with the state commission's decision filed this suit on June 21, 1974 challenging specific provisions of the Coastal Act as unconstitutional and also attacking the decisions of the commissions as in excess of their constitutional authority.² Plaintiffs bring their suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the federal civil rights act and name as defendants the state and regional commissions, their individual members, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the California Coastal Alliance (CCA), and the Sierra Club.

Defendants NRDC and CCA have also taken issue with the decisions rendered by the commissions and on July 8, 1974, filed a petition for writ of mandate in state Superior Court seeking judicial review of the commission's decision.

The parties have five separate motions before the Court: Plaintiffs have moved to enjoin NRDC and CCA's state court action, to enjoin the commission's requirement of a $1500 deposit in lieu of certain permit conditions, and to reconsider a previously invoked stay of discovery. Defendant, coastal commission, moves to dismiss or abstain; and Defendant NRDC moves to dismiss or abstain.

After extensive oral argument and briefing it became evident that the crux of the constitutional challenge which caused this Court to be convened in the first place³ is whether constitutional concepts of vested rights and due process preclude the application of the California Coastal Zone Act to plaintiffs at all.⁴ Plaintiffs argue that it should not be applied to them and that to do so would violate their civil rights and deny them due process. Their position is, essentially, that this narrow definition of vested rights ignores a whole raft of common law property rights that may have vested prior to the adoption of the Act. In particular they argue that where, as here, a developer of a planned-unit community and an association of landowners and individual landowners have worked closely with state and local governments in the intricate planning of such a community, have dedicated substantial properties for public use pursuant thereto and have secured approval thereof, the individual landowners have earned vested rights in both the overall development of the community and in the development of their specific lots. Thus, they contend any statute which purports to deny or disregard such vesting violates due process.

They also claim that since this statute is unconstitutional on its face abstention would be inappropriate because there is no room for state interpretation which would save it.⁵

While a federal court cannot channel federal constitutional issues to state courts merely to avoid a federal decision, Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 88 S.Ct. 391, 19 L.Ed.2d 444 (1967), the appropriate case for abstention arises when the challenged state statute is susceptible to a construction by the state courts that would avoid or modify the federal constitutional question. Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.S. 167, 79 S.Ct. 1025, 3 L.Ed.2d 1152 (1959); Lake Carriers' Association v. MacMullan, 406 U. S. 498, 92 S.Ct. 1749, 32 L.Ed.2d 257 (1972).

The abstention doctrine rests upon policy considerations of comity and judicial economy. First, abstention is appropriate for the avoidance of unnecessary interference with state regulatory schemes on the premise that federal intervention in such schemes would lead to conflicts in the federal-state relationship. Burford v. Sun Oil, 319 U.S. 315, 63 S.Ct. 1098, 87 L.Ed. 1424 (1943). Second, abstention is appropriate to avoid a federal court making tentative or premature decisions on issues of state law when a state court decision may substantially eliminate or minimize the federal constitutional issue. Railroad Comm'n v. Pullman, 312 U.S. 496, 61 S. Ct. 643, 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941).⁶ Both of these considerations are present in the case before us.

In Burford, supra, a federal court was called upon to consider a Texas administrative decision made pursuant to a complex state scheme for conserving its oil deposit resources. The protective scheme in Burford was no doubt more complex than the California coastal protection plan. Nevertheless, the questions of California coastal protection present local matters of vital state concern, just as preservation of oil resources presented local matters of vital state concern to the state of Texas in Burford. For this Court to presume an essential role in this state scheme of resource preservation would be an audacious and presumptuous violation of Burford principles.

The Supreme Court's most recent comprehensive statement on the abstention doctrine Lake Carriers', supra, applies it to a constitutional challenge of state laws that had not been definitively construed by state courts. Indeed, that case bears a striking resemblance to the controversy here. The Lake Carriers' plaintiffs challenged the Michigan Watercraft Pollution Act on a variety of constitutional grounds. The Michigan law restricted the discharge of sewage into state waters and required toilets on small boats to be equipped with certain pollution control devices. Individual boat owners and an association of lake carriers mounted a Federal challenge to the statute, as interpreted by state authorities, on preemption, commerce clause, equal protection, due process, and vagueness theories.

The Supreme Court found the case a proper one for federal abstention, explaining:

The paradigm case for abstention arises when the challenged state statute is susceptible of "a construction by the state courts that would avoid or modify the (federal) constitutional question. Harrison v. NAACP, 360 U.S. 167 79 S.Ct. 1025, 3 L.Ed.2d 1152. . . . More fully, we have explained:

"Where resolution of the federal constitutional question is dependent upon, or may be materially altered by, the determination of an uncertain issue of state law, abstention may be proper in order to avoid unnecessary friction in federal-state relations, interference with important state functions, tentative decisions of state law, and premature constitutional adjudication . . . Harman v. Forssenius, 380 U.S. 528, 534 85 S.Ct. 1177, 1182, 14 L.Ed. 2d 50 (1965).

406 U.S. 510-11, 92 S.Ct.

The Court then identified two ambiguities in the state stat...