Opinion ID: 664140
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Water Moratorium

Text: 41 The Kawaokas next argue that the City's water moratorium was arbitrary and a mere pretext for blocking development on their property. They cite to Johnson's declaration, in which he states that Paul Karp, a city engineer, told him that the City was using water as a pretext to stop development. This claim fails for several reasons. 42 First, as the district court noted, the temporary moratorium lasted only a year; it merely limited new development plans during that time period and did not in any way restrict the processing of specific plans. Because the Kawaokas may not develop their property until a specific plan is prepared, and because the moratorium did not deter the processing of specific plans, the water moratorium did not delay any development efforts by the Kawaokas. But even if it could be argued that the moratorium delayed development of their property for one year, such a short-term delay does not rise to constitutional dimensions. See Agins, 447 U.S. at 263 n. 9, 100 S.Ct. at 2143 n. 9; Zilber, 692 F.Supp. at 1206. 43 The record also supports the City's decision to enact the water moratorium as a rational one. Although the Kawaokas point to a declaration that the water moratorium was a pretext for preventing development, the City points to estimates by its Department of Public Works that if all pending development applications were approved, it would face a water shortage of 637 to 833 acre feet per year. Given the serious drought conditions and water shortages faced by California cities, we cannot say that the City's efforts temporarily to limit development while it studies its future water supply is irrational. 44 Except for a declaration that merely asserts that the moratorium is pretextual, the Kawaokas do not provide any evidence that this is so. 10 This case is therefore unlike Lockary v. Kayfetz, 917 F.2d 1150 (9th Cir.1990), the case cited by the Kawaokas. In Lockary, we held that a moratorium on new water hookups might be arbitrary where the plaintiffs demonstrated that during the moratorium water use increased by 70%, water storage capacity increased by 1100%, the city had provided water for swimming pools, the city had voluntarily relinquished rights to certain water sources, and the leakage rate for the City's water was at least twice normal. Id. at 1155-56. Unlike the plaintiffs in Lockary, the Kawaokas provide no evidence to suggest that the City's numbers are in fact contrived. 45 The Kawaokas also argue that they have evidence that demonstrates that if their property is converted to residential use at 5.0 units/acre, it would still require less water than they currently use for strawberry farming. Assuming this is true, these numbers do not make a one year water moratorium irrational or pretextual. The record supports the City's argument that in enacting the moratorium, the City was responding to a perceived water shortage faced by the entire community. See Barancik, 872 F.2d at 836-37 (zoning ranch area to preserve rural landscape is not irrational merely because as many cows would graze on plaintiff's property if there were twenty-eight residences as would graze if there were nine). The record simply does not support the contention that the one-year moratorium (now expired) was mere pretext for preventing all development on the Kawaokas' property.