Stocks v. City of Irvine
| Decision Date | 09 January 1981 |
| Citation | 170 Cal.Rptr. 724,114 Cal.App.3d 520 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Betty Sue STOCKS et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. CITY OF IRVINE, Defendant and Respondent. Civ. 21827. |
Plaintiffs appeal from an adverse judgment following the granting of defendant's motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs are seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the City of Irvine because Irvine's land use ordinances and regulations allegedly violate the Constitutions and laws of the United States and California by excluding from Irvine housing for low and moderate income people. Summary judgment was granted after the trial court held that plaintiffs did not have standing to sue.
The complaint alleges that because of its substantial industrial development, the City of Irvine has become one of the major employment centers in Southern California; that this development has led to the creation of thousands of jobs that are being filled or could be filled by persons of low and moderate income; and that this has created an enormous need for moderate and low-cost housing within the city which has been exacerbated by the existing critical shortage of such housing throughout Southern California.
The complaint further alleges that Irvine has not only failed to provide for its fair share of moderate and low-cost housing, but has systematically prevented low and moderate income persons from living in Irvine through the following zoning and land use regulations:
(1) the imposition of unreasonably strict design and amenity requirements that are unrelated to insuring minimum health and safety standards;
(2) the zoning of an excessive amount of land for agricultural purposes and for low density, single family housing;
(3) the imposition upon developers of exactions and dedication requirements for such amenities as parks, open space, bike paths, equestrian paths and more transit rights-of-way beyond those needed to preserve health, safety and environmental quality;
(4) the requirement that capital improvements benefiting the entire city be financed either by developers or by homeowner associations, rather than by the city;
(5) the limitation on the number of multiple-unit dwellings built so that most of the multiple unit housing permitted has been for single persons, such as on the University of California at Irvine campus or housing restricted to adults only;
(6) the severe limitation on the construction of mobile home facilities; and
(7) the regulatory scheme which requires administrative review of residential developments at several stages in the development process and reserves to the city unrestricted discretion at each stage to determine and approve the nature of all developments, thereby delaying development, increasing its cost, and leading to lower densities and stricter design standards than originally contemplated.
It is alleged that the effect of all of these practices has been to drive up the cost of housing in Irvine well beyond the means of low and moderate income people. The plaintiffs are alleged to be low income people who live in substandard housing outside Irvine because they are unable to afford housing in the city.
Finally, it is alleged, the city's exclusionary practices and its failure to provide its fair share of low and moderate cost housing exceed its police powers, deny plaintiffs equal protection of the law, constitute racial discrimination, deprive plaintiffs of their due process rights and abridge their constitutional right to travel.
Irvine denied generally all of the plaintiffs' allegations and raised 48 affirmative defenses. Later, while extensive discovery was continuing, Irvine moved for summary judgment. The motion was based solely on the city's eighth affirmative defense: that the "(p)laintiffs have no personal interest in the matters alleged in the complaint sufficient to establish their standing to maintain this action."
Plaintiffs' principal claim of standing is based on their positions as low income citizens of Los Angeles and Orange counties who would like to live in Irvine if they could find affordable housing there. 1 They contend that Irvine's illegal zoning practices have injured them in two ways: by preventing them, because of their low income status, from obtaining housing in Irvine and by reducing the amount of low and moderate income housing in Irvine, which has adversely affected the housing market for the entire region, thereby increasing the housing costs where plaintiffs presently live. In short, the complaint alleges, "(i)f the CITY eliminated its exclusionary practices and complied with its duty to provide its fair share of regional housing needs, plaintiffs would be able either to live in the CITY, or to afford better housing outside of the CITY " 2
In its motion for summary judgment, Irvine contended that the plaintiffs' allegations were insufficient to confer standing because of the failure to specify a particular proposed housing project that would have been built but for the city's zoning practices. Irvine argued that because of this deficiency, plaintiffs lacked standing to bring suit. The trial court agreed with Irvine and granted the city's motion for summary judgment, applying the standing requirements of Warth v. Seldin (1975) 422 U.S. 490, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343.
On appeal, plaintiffs contend that Warth is not binding on this court, and that, under California's more liberal standard, they have established standing to sue in this case. Alternatively, they contend that they have standing even under Warth, if the standard is properly applied.
We begin with an explanation of exactly what is not being decided in this case. We do not decide and express no opinion on whether Irvine's zoning practices have violated any rights of the plaintiffs, or even whether there is sufficient evidence on this issue to present a triable question of fact. This issue was not before the trial court on the motion for summary judgment and is not before this court. The only issue before us is whether plaintiffs lack standing to sue by reason of their failure to allege that a particular low cost housing project would have been built but for the city's zoning practices. For the purposes of this appeal, therefore, we will assume that Irvine's zoning practices purposefully excluded low and middle income persons, violating constitutional and statutory rights of the persons excluded and of those persons harmed by the adverse affect on the regional housing market. (Warth v. Seldin, supra, at p. 502, 95 S.Ct. at p. 2207.) By doing so, we can decide the issue at bar: whether or not the six plaintiffs in this case should be allowed to challenge the assumed violations in court. 3
The relevant facts in Warth v. Seldin are practically identical to the facts in this case. Four of the individual plaintiffs in Warth were low or moderate income residents of Rochester, New York. 4 They alleged that a zoning ordinance in the nearby town of Penfield purposely excluded low and moderate income persons from living in the town. (422 U.S. at p. 495, 95 S.Ct. at p. 2203.) The alleged harm was that "Penfield's zoning practices had prevented them from acquiring, by lease or purchase, residential property in the town, and thus had forced them and their families to reside in less attractive environments." (422 U.S. at p. 496, 95 S.Ct. at p. 2203.) Among other remedies, these plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief.
The court in Warth detailed a two-prong test for standing in exclusionary zoning cases and held that the four low and moderate income plaintiffs had failed that test. The Warth standard is that plaintiffs "must allege facts from which it reasonably could be inferred that, absent the respondents' restrictive zoning practices, there is a substantial probability that they would have been able to purchase or lease in Penfield and that, if the court affords the relief requested, the asserted inability of (plaintiffs) will be removed." (422 U.S. at p. 504, 95 S.Ct. at p. 2207, emphasis added.)
The Warth plaintiffs lacked standing, the court said, because "the facts alleged fail to support an actionable causal relationship between Penfield's zoning practices and (plaintiffs') asserted injury." (422 U.S. at p. 507, 95 S.Ct. at p. 2209, emphasis added.) The court stated that the plaintiffs' "desire to live in Penfield always has depended on the efforts and willingness of third parties to build low- and moderate-cost housing." (422 U.S. at p. 505, 95 S.Ct. at p. 2208.) Since the plaintiffs did not claim that a particular housing project which would have satisfied their needs would have been built in Penfield but for Penfield's zoning practices, they demonstrated to the court neither the "substantial probability" of a "causal relationship" between Penfield's actions and plaintiffs' injuries, nor that the requested relief would probably remove the harm. The court held that a plaintiff challenging zoning practices need not necessari ly "have a present contractual interest in a particular project," but that "usually the...
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