Rancho De Calistoga v. City of Calistoga
| Decision Date | 03 September 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 12–17749.,12–17749. |
| Citation | 800 F.3d 1083 |
| Parties | RANCHO DE CALISTOGA, a California General Partnership, Petitioner–Appellant, v. CITY OF CALISTOGA; W. Scott Snowden, Hearing Officer, The City of Calistoga, Respondents–Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Anthony C. Rodriguez (argued), Law Office of Anthony C. Rodriguez, Oakland, CA, for Petitioner–Appellant.
Amy E. Hoyt (argued), Burke, Williams & Sorenson, Oakland, CA; Michelle Marchetta Kenyon, City Attorney, Calistoga, CA, for Respondents–Appellees.
Michael John von Loewenfeldt, Kerr & Wagstaffe LLP, San Francisco, CA, for Amicus Curiae League of California Cities.
R.S. Radford, Pacific Legal Foundation, Sacramento, CA, for Amicus Curiae Pacific Legal Foundation.
Robert H. Thomas and Bethany C.K. Ace, Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert, Honolulu, HI, for Amicus Curiae Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Jeffrey S. White, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. 3:11–cv–05015–JSW.
Before: M. MARGARET McKEOWN, WILLIAM A. FLETCHER, and RICHARD R. CLIFTON, Circuit Judges.
Fifth Amendment takings challenges to mobile home rent control laws are ubiquitous in this and other circuits. Quoting Yogi Berra, we have previously characterized these claims as “deja vu all over again.” MHC Fin. Ltd. P'ship v. City of San Rafael, 714 F.3d 1118, 1122 (9th Cir.2013). Each time a court closes one legal avenue to mobile home park owners seeking to escape rent control regimes, the owners, undaunted, attempt to forge a new path via another novel legal theory. This time, it is in the form of an “as-applied private takings claim” as a claim separate and independent from the owner's regulatory takings claim. Alas, it is also deja vu again with respect to the result; we decline to open the door to using this so-called “private takings claim” as an end-run around established regulatory-takings jurisprudence. We hold that no regulatory taking occurred here and that Rancho de Calistoga's self-styled “private takings claim” is not a separately cognizable claim. Similarly, we are not persuaded by the related due process and equal protection claims. We affirm the district court's dismissal of the case.
Rancho de Calistoga (“the Park”) is a mobile home park located in Calistoga, California. The Park, which encompasses 26.5 acres, was originally developed by Hal C. Aguirre and R. C. Roberts. When the Roberts and Aguirre partnership dissolved in the mid–1970's, one of the parcels was transferred to Aguirre, who formed Rancho de Calistoga (“Rancho”), the California general partnership that now owns and operates the Park of the same name. Rancho describes the Park as having been developed as “an alternative form of housing for those who desired and could afford that alternative form of housing,” and not as “low cost or low income housing.” Zoning for the Park was approved in October 1970.
The City of Calistoga (“the City”) had no form of mobile home rent control until 1984, when the City adopted an ordinance that enabled mobile home park tenants to challenge rent increases. The ordinance was amended several times, and in 2007, the City adopted Ordinance No. 644, entitled “Mobile Home Park Rent Stabilization.” Calistoga, Cal., Municipal Code ch. 2.22 (2007) ( “Ordinance 644”). The purpose of the ordinance is to “stabilize mobile home park space rents” to, among other things, “[p]revent exploitation of the shortage of vacant mobile home park spaces,” “[p]revent excessive and unreasonable ... rent increases,” and “[r]ectify the disparity of bargaining power” between park owners and mobile home owners. Id. § 2.22.010.D.
The City based the ordinance in part on the findings that: (1) “[r]esidents of mobile home parks, unlike apartment tenants or residents of other rental properties, are in a unique position in that they have made a substantial investment in a residence for which space is rented or leased”; (2) “relocation of a mobile home from a park space is generally accomplished at substantial cost” and comes with risk of damaging the home; and (3) rent increases could “cause a hardship to a substantial number” of mobile home park residents, “most of whom are elderly, on fixed incomes, or persons of low income.” Id. § 2.22.010.B. The City also found it “necessary to protect mobile home homeowners ... from unreasonable rent increases and at the same time recognize the rights of mobile home park owners to maintain their property and to receive just and reasonable return on their investments.”Id. § 2.22.010.B.4.
The ordinance authorizes a yearly rent increase equal to the lesser of 100% of the percent change in the Consumer Price Index or 6% of the base rent. Id. § 2.22.070.A. It also establishes an administrative mechanism for park owners to seek to increase rent above this amount. Id. § 2.22.080. This process exists to “insur[e] mobile home park owners a fair, just, and reasonable rate of return on their parks in cases where the annual space rent increase provided by [the ordinance] proves insufficient.” Id. § 2.22.010.D.5.
In September 2010, Rancho asked the City Council to establish a public subsidy program to provide mobile home park tenants with a monthly stipend equal to the difference between the market rate and the rent control rate, regardless of need.
The City Council did not act on the request.
In 2010, Rancho decided to notice a rent increase from $471.39 to $625 per month, which an economist retained by Rancho deemed to be “not excessive but ... slightly below market.” An administrative hearing officer, W. Scott Snowden, conducted evidentiary hearings. In July 2011, Snowden issued a decision in which he rejected Rancho's request and instead allowed a rent increase to a total of $537.59 per space per month. Snowden declined to rule on Rancho's constitutional claims, noting that “it would be premature to consider an ‘as-applied’ constitutional challenge to the ordinance as such an inquiry would be best left to the courts.”
Following the ruling, Rancho filed a Petition for Writ of Administrative Mandamus in the Napa County Superior Court. That same day, it filed suit in federal court against the City of Calistoga and Snowden (collectively referred to as “The City”), asserting claims for, among other things, violations of the Takings, Due Process, and Equal Protection Clauses of the United States Constitution. It also filed with the district court a notice regarding the pendency of the state petition. The City successfully moved to dismiss. The district court found that any facial challenge to Ordinance 644 was time barred, that Rancho failed to state claims for private takings, due process, and equal protection violations, and that the regulatory takings claim was not ripe. The court granted Rancho leave to amend its as-applied claims.
Rancho then filed a First Amended Petition that included the same due process and equal protection claims and a revised private takings claim. Rancho did not challenge the court's conclusions with respect to the facial challenges or regulatory taking claim, but reserved “any right it may have to seek reconsideration and/or appellate review of any” of the court's rulings. The district court granted a second motion to dismiss and entered judgment for the City. The court again found that Rancho failed to state a private takings claim, and that the due process and equal protection claims were “subsumed by the purported takings claim.”
In the related state litigation, the California Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's denial of Rancho's petition in July 2015. Rancho de Calistoga v. City of Calistoga, No. A138301, 2015 WL 4099027 (Cal.Ct.App. July 7, 2015). Rancho then appealed to the California Supreme Court, where the case remains pending.
The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., 544 U.S. 528, 536, 125 S.Ct. 2074, 161 L.Ed.2d 876 (2005), provides that “private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.”U.S. Const. amend. V.
The law on condemnations and physical takings, which the Supreme Court has described as “as old as the Republic,” is governed by the simple rule that “[w]hen the government physically takes possession of an interest in property for some public purpose, it has a categorical duty to compensate the former owner.” Tahoe–Sierra Pres. Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Reg'l Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302, 322, 122 S.Ct. 1465, 152 L.Ed.2d 517 (2002). Thus, in physical takings cases, the analysis inevitably focuses on the public use and just compensation requirements.
In contrast to a physical taking, a regulatory taking occurs where “government regulation of private property [is] so onerous that its effect is tantamount to a direct appropriation or ouster.” Lingle, 544 U.S. at 537, 125 S.Ct. 2074. Regulatory takings claims, such as the one here, are “of more recent vintage.”1 Tahoe–Sierra, 535 U.S. at 322, 122 S.Ct. 1465. These claims are “characterized by essentially ad hoc, factual inquiries, designed to allow careful examination and weighing of all the relevant circumstances” to determine whether a taking has occurred in the first place. Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The factors to be considered in this type of factual inquiry are laid out in Penn Central Transportation Company v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104, 124, 98 S.Ct. 2646, 57 L.Ed.2d 631 (1978). Only after it has been determined that a taking has occurred do the issues of public use and just compensation become relevant. We therefore begin our analysis with this first step—whether a regulatory taking has occurred—and conclude that it has not.
At the outset, we consider whether Rancho's claims are ripe. The Supreme Court...
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