Court Opinion

ID: 9578308
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:43:54.665864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:30.386906
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.
I respectfully dissent. The City Council of Hayward did not abuse its discretion in cancelling the agreement in question.
*865This being an administrative mandamus proceeding, our task as a reviewing court is to determine “(b) .. . whether there was any prejudicial abuse of discretion. Abuse of discretion is established if the respondent has not proceeded in the manner required by law, the ... decision is not supported by the findings, or the findings are not supported by the evidence. [1Í] (c) Where it is claimed that the findings are not supported by the evidence,... abuse of discretion is established if the court determines that the findings are not supported by substantial evidence in the light of the whole record.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 1094.5, subds. (b), (c).) The majority apparently concedes that the council acted properly and “proceeded in the manner required by law” in the conduct of the required hearings and in the receipt of relevant evidence. Nonetheless, it concludes both that the council failed to make necessary findings and that it made other necessary findings which lacked any foundational support in the record.
Required Findings
What are the required findings in such a case? Section 51282 of the Government Code provides, in relevant part: “The board or council may approve the cancellation of a contract only if they find: [1f] (a) That the cancellation is not inconsistent with the purpose of this chapter; and [U] (b) That cancellation is in the public interest.” The section also provides that certain additional factors may be considered under certain circumstances in deciding whether to cancel an agreement, e.g. the uneconomic character of an existing use and the existence of alternative uses. Although expressly providing that neither of these latter considerations shall by itself constitute sufficient reason for cancellation, the statute does not require any formal findings as to them. The obvious reason is that these are but two illustrative examples of possible factors which may be considered by the council in making the twin findings of consistency with the purposes of the act and harmony with the public interest which, in contrast, are statutorily required before cancellation may be ordered.
In order to make the specified findings, then, the council must look to the “purpose of this chapter” and the “public interest” referred to therein. (Gov. Code, § 51282.) These are found in Government Code section 51220, where the Legislature describes the purpose and public interests served by the Williamson Act: (a) “the preservation of a maximum amount of the limited supply of agricultural land,” (b) “the discouragement of premature and unnecessary conversion of agricultural land to *866urban uses” and of resulting “discontiguous urban development patterns,” and (c) the preservation of “open space” because of its “important physical, social, esthetic and economic asset to existing or pending urban or metropolitan developments.” {Ibid.)
What did the council find? As the majority must acknowledge {ante, p. 848), the council did make the findings which were explicitly required by the statute to warrant its order of cancellation. It expressly found that the partial cancellation sought by real parties “is not inconsistent with the purposes of the California Land Conservation Act of 1965 and is in the public interest . .. .” (Hayward City Council Res. No. 79-012 C.S.) Moreover, the council specifically related those findings to the legislative purpose and public interest enunciated in the statute. On the basis of the record before it, the council determined that the removal of the “relatively small area” from the agricultural preserve would not jeopardize the agricultural use of surrounding lands, that the proposed subdivision development “is neither premature nor unnecessary” and would serve the public interest in providing required “housing accommodations as an orderly extension of contiguous residential subdivision,” and that the proposed dedication of 30 of the 93 acres to the City of Hayward as an open space “will contribute to the esthetic, physical, and open space environment of . . . the City as a whole.”
Such conclusions were wholly proper. They reflect the considered judgment of the local entity, speaking through its duly elected officials, after careful review of competing considerations and the exercise of an informed discretion on matters within the prerogative of local government. In making these findings, the Hayward City Council acted in full recognition of, and obedience to, the Legislature’s expressed concerns (Gov. Code, § 51220) and in accordance with its statutory direction {id., § 51282).
In reviewing the council’s cancellation pursuant to these statutes, our next—and final—concern should be with the sufficiency of the record to support these findings. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1094.5, subds. (b), (c).) At this point the majority in my view strays far afield. “Reading between the lines” of the Williamson Act it discerns unexpressed legislative concerns and implicit requirements for additional council findings before cancellation is permitted.
The majority finds reversible error in the council’s failure to make formal findings as to the “considerations” set forth in the statute relat*867ing to cancellation. (See Gov. Code, § 51282.) But formal findings as to the existence or nonexistence of all possible subsidiary considerations are not mandated by any applicable California statutory or decisional law. Topanga Assn. for a Scenic Community v. County of Los Angeles (1974) 11 Cal.3d 506 [113 Cal.Rptr. 836, 522 P.2d 12], heavily relied upon by the majority, does not support any such requirement. Rather, Topanga held, within the context of a statute which imposed no requirement of findings before a variance could be granted by a local board, that the scope of review contemplated by section 1094.5 necessitated some “findings to bridge the analytic gap between the raw evidence and ultimate decision or order.” {Id., at p. 515.) We noted that the basis for such a requirement is that “‘“the orderly functioning of the process of review requires that the grounds upon which the administrative agency acted be clearly disclosed and adequately sustained.” (S.E.C. v. Chenery Corp. (1943) 318 U.S. 80, 94.)’ [Citations.]” (Id., at p. 516.) To that end, we declared that the findings must “expose the board’s mode of analysis,” but specifically cautioned that they “‘need not be stated with the formality required in judicial proceedings’ [citation].” (Id., at p. 517, fn. 16.)
Jn contrast to Topanga, the statute before us does require certain precancellation findings. The Legislature in Government Code section 51280 described the purpose of the termination of a Williamson Act contract, permitting such cancellation “only when the continued dedication of land under such contracts to agricultural use is neither necessary nor desirable for the purposes of this chapter.” Accordingly, the Legislature insisted upon findings that any proposed, cancellation be “not inconsistent” with those purposes and be “in the public interest.” (Id., § 51282.) Thus the statutory scheme here, quite unlike that in Topanga, does require “findings sufficient both to enable the parties to determine whether and on what basis they should seek review and, in the event of review, to apprise a reviewing court of the basis for the board’s action.” (Topanga, supra, 11 Cal.3d at p. 514.) Consequently, there is no necessity for judicially engrafting upon the Williamson Act any requirement that a local city council make any additional findings in order to permit appropriate section 1094.5 review. Topanga has very limited precedential force in evaluating the action of the Council of the City of Hayward.
After identifying the “public interests” which it is the purpose of the act to further, and acknowledging that the city council properly considered those interests in deciding to cancel the contract in question, the *868majority still discovers error in the council’s failure to consider an additional legislative intent.
Acknowledging that'the Legislature “was primarily interested in the preservation of open space land and the orderly development of urban areas” {ante, p. 857, italics added), the majority then notes that the same criteria of open space preservation and orderly urban development govern both the initial entry of the parties into such agreements and their cancellation. {Ante, p. 857.) Finally, the majority concedes that the city did take into consideration “the statutory purposes of preserving open space and achieving orderly development ...” in cancelling the contract in question. {Ante, p. 855.) Where, then, does the majority find error? In the council’s failure to “consider the Legislature’s intent to limit cancellation to the extraordinary cases in which nonrenewal is inappropriate.” {Ante, p. 855.)
No such intent, however, appears anywhere in the legislation we are construing. In declaring that “there must be substantial evidence that awaiting the normal termination of the contract would fail to serve the purposes that purport to justify cancellation” {ante, p. 854), the majority makes the very error of which it accuses the council: it “thereby read[s] into the statute a refinement neither explicit nor implicit in its provisions.” {Ante, p. 856.) Similarly, it distorts the act in concluding that cancellation becomes inconsistent with its purposes “if the objections to be served by cancellation should have been predicted and served by nonrenewal at an earlier time, or if such objectives can be served by nonrenewal now.” {Ante, p. 855.) Where is the authority for such a novel proposition? With due deference, I suggest that there is none.
The majority’s conclusion that “the Legislature intended cancellation to be approved only in the most extraordinary circumstances” {ante, p. 853) is unsupportable. Equally unfounded is its assertion that unique “purposes” or “objectives” must be established to warrant cancellation. To the contrary, the purpose of the cancellation provision is expressly declared, quite simply and clearly, to be “to provide relief from the provisions of [land preservation] contracts . . . when the continued dedication of land under such contracts to agricultural use is neither necessary nor desirable for the purposes of this chapter.” (Gov. Code, § 51280, italics added.) Nowhere among the statutory grounds or considerations allowing cancellation is there any indication that exigent or “extraordinary” circumstances are required before cancellation may be *869effected. {Id., § 51282.) That novel thought springs from the majority, not from the statute.
Neither do the statutory provisions for partial recapture of tax benefits enjoyed by the landowner upon cancellation of such a contract (see Gov. Code, § 51283.1) express any legislative policy opposing cancellation. Rather, they represent an attempt to adjust the equities between the landowner and the taxing authorities. In the event cancellation is deemed otherwise appropriate and is the chosen method of termination, the phased-in increase in taxes to which the taxing authority would be entitled under the nonrenewal provision of the act (see Rev. & Tax. Code, § 426) is approximated by such recapture. The Legislature’s attempt to achieve fairness demonstrates neither its “resolve to make cancellation the exception to the general rule,” as suggested by the majority {ante, p. 853), nor general hostility to the cancellation procedure, where appropriate.
The majority’s error in thus judicially adding to the statutory requirements for cancellation stems from its focus on only one legislative purpose as being of “paramount importance,” namely, “the preservation of land in agricultural production. ...” {ante, p. 857), while ignoring the purpose of “orderly development” which it must recognize elsewhere {ante, p. 856).
Having selected the former goal as the more worthy, the majority then proceeds to adopt whatever canon of construction will be most expedient to support its reading of the Williamson Act. Thus it chooses to construe the cancellation provision of the act “narrowly” {ante, p. 864) in contrast to the “flexible approach” which it uses in ascertaining whether there is available other “proximate” land for the “use” intended for the land to be released upon cancellation. {Ante, p. 860.) Such obvious juggling of interpretive techniques makes readily apparent the majority’s labored effort to “interpret” the act to achieve a result not intended by the Legislature. The issue, of course, is not whether the majority has thereby fashioned a better law. The salient point is that it is no part of our function of appellate review to legislate at all.
In unilaterally promulgating new findings requirements, the majority tightens a steel band around the statutory scheme. The Legislature described explicitly and exclusively its purposes in authorizing the agreements in question (Gov. Code, § 51220) and it permits cancellation of such agreements when they are no longer necessary or desirable *870to carry out those purposes. {Id., § 51280.) There is nothing whatever in the applicable statutes which justifies the majority’s imposition of any additional limitations on the power of a local agency in its enforcement of the Williamson Act.
The impropriety of this judicial redrafting of the Williamson Act is made manifest when the majority applies one of its new judicial conditions to the facts before us. The majority recites that in 1969 the city’s planning department noted that the land was “capable of being developed,” that in 1971 the city’s plan map designated the parcel for “suburban residential use” and that the Mayor of Hayward did not feel “‘that it should have gone in nine years ago,... because it was so clearly to me the next piece of land that would be developed ....’” {Ante, p. 855.) On these facts the majority reasons, mistakenly in my opinion, that because some Hayward officials nine years earlier had recognized that the subject property was suitable for commercial development, the council therefore should not be permitted, belatedly, to acknowledge that fact and now withdraw the parcel from Williamson Act treatment. Rather, the majority concludes that the council must sit idly, by for an additional extended period to permit the balance of the 10-year contract to run its course before the procedural handcuffs may be removed both from city officials and from property owners. In my view, such wooden and mechanical application of a statute defies logic, good community planning and common sense.
The fact that the city planner recommended nine years earlier that the subject property not be included in an agricultural preserve and that it be designated “suburban residential use” clearly establishes that its release in 1979 from Williamson Act control was neither premature nor inconsistent with the purposes of the act. For nine years the landowner had the benefit of favorable Williamson Act treatment. For the identical period the public had the full benefit of the green-belt agricultural preserve. The public now will also receive, free of cost, by outright dedication to the City of Hayward approximately one-third of the subject property for “open space environment.” A development plan, long anticipated, having fully matured, a municipality should have flexible authority and sufficient elbow room to accommodate both public and private interests to changing conditions.
The constraining procedural straightjacket into which the majority gratuitously locks California municipalities is not required by any provision or purpose of the Williamson Act. Certainly it is not compelled by *871the record before us, the sufficiency of which is the only remaining issue for proper review under section 1094.5.
Sufficiency of the Evidence
The findings required by the statute (and made by the council) are fully supported by substantial evidence in light of the whole record. {Id., § 1094.5, subds. (b), (c).) The administrative record here contains an environmental report (required by statute) certified and approved by the council. The report notes that only residential subdivisions and previously “contracted” agricultural preserve lands are contiguous to the 93-acre parcel in question. The record also discloses a report and recommendation of the city’s planning department “that the requested area be deleted from agricultural preserve,” “that the public interest would not be harmed,” and “that no other parcel is proximate and suitable for the size, type, and use proposed.”
There was additional testimony as to the unavailability of other proximate land for housing development of the type here contemplated —upper middle income. Further evidence established, as well, the uneconomic character of continuing the existing agricultural use of the land in question. The fact that there may have been some countervailing testimony offered on some of these matters, of course, does not demonstrate that the council’s findings were not supported by substantial evidence. In determining whether the administrative agency’s findings are so supported, “the reviewing court must resolve reasonable doubts in favor of the administrative findings and decision.” (Topanga, supra, 11 Cal.3d at p. 514.)
The majority frankly admits that “Substantial evidence does appear in the record to support the council’s findings that the land was a logical site for the extension of suburban development, that dedication of 30 acres of the site to open space was consistent with the purposes of the act, and that development of the parcel would not seriously jeopardize nearby agricultural uses.” {Ante, p. 854.) Nonetheless, my colleagues hold that such evidence does not support the council’s ultimate finding of consistency with the purposes of the act. The majority so opines on the basis that “It is inconsistent with the purposes of the act to allow abrupt cancellation if nonrenewal would accomplish the same objective.” (ibid.) As indicated, however, such an assertion lacks any precedential authority, misconstrues the legislative purpose of the act, and directly conflicts with its clear language.
*872Conclusion
The importance of California’s agricultural industry to the state and nation cannot be disputed. That is not the issue before us. Its preservation is essential. It is disingenuous, however, for the majority to rely upon such generalities in interfering with the informed, considered decision of the Hayward City Council that cancellation of the agreement in question as to this property at this time will not adversely affect that laudable goal. We cannot presume that the council, as a responsible local agency, is insensitive either to agriculture or to esthetics. There is substantial evidence in the record as a whole supporting the findings of the council that, on the facts before it, such cancellation is not inconsistent with the purposes of the Williamson Act and is in the public interest. Because those findings in turn support the council’s order of cancellation, no abuse of discretion appears and that should be the end of our inquiry.
The council’s order should be affirmed.
Clark, J., concurred.
The petition of respondent City of Hayward and real party in interest Ponderosa Homes for a rehearing was denied March 26, 1981, and the judgment was modified to read as printed above. Richardson, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.