Court Opinion

ID: 9721520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:01:27.415308+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:26.903736
License: Public Domain

LEWIS, J.*
I respectfully dissent.
The Board of Supervisors of San Diego County determined that respondent Real Party in Interest was permitted to cancel the agricultural and open space preserve contracts pertaining to the respondent’s land, under the “window” provisions of the Robinson Act amendments to the Williamson Act, and to proceed with development of their property based on a finding the planned development would not “create discontiguous patterns of urban development.” There is no question but what this finding, if proper, is a valid basis of the board’s action.
The Board’s finding the development would not “create discontigous patterns of urban development” is based on a finding the planned development is “rural” in nature and therefore by definition not “urban.” The majority of this court determine the planned development is in fact urban. The proposed development, having been scaled down from 862 dwelling, units to 389 units to comply with the “multiple rural use density limitations of the Jamul-Dulzura Subregional Area Plan,” has a density of .18 units per acre or 5.2 acres per unit, with actual lot sizes ranging from 1 acre to 2.5 acres and more than 40 percent of the land dedicated as permanent open space, and up to 90 percent of the 2,022 acres retained or restored to a natural rural appearance. The development will include related commercial, service and recreational facilities. As proposed, the project does qualify as “multiple rural use” according to the subregional area plan, and the comprehensive general plan as adopted by the San Diego County Planning Commission and San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
It is plain under these statutes the Legislature has left to local government agencies the land use determinations of what is “urban development” and what is not. It also seems plain “rural” development is not “urban” development. What the planning commission and board of supervisors find to be “urban” or “rural” may not be quite the same in Sierra, Shasta, or Siskiyou as in San Francisco, Sacramento or San Diego. That would seem to be exactly why local governments should be permitted to make these land use decision in terms consistent with their other land use decisions and with *1153the terms of their locally adopted land use regulations, plans, and ordinances.
I would suggest the court should refrain from defining “urban” or “rural” in different terms or by different standards than those adopted after extensive public hearings by the elected supervisors on the recommendation of the planning commission and with the advice and participation of local planning groups. Even though some judges might have backgrounds in local agency law or land-use regulation, that is not the qualification of office or the profession of the courts. The particular decisions about what is “rural” or “urban” in particular counties is, in the area of land use, left, and properly so, to different planning commissions and boards of supervisors rather than to different courts. I suggest the court’s review of this case should be confined to determining whether by the duly considered and adopted land use regulations of San Diego County, the board’s decision the project is “rural” and not “urban,” and therefore not the prospective cause of “dis-contiguous urban development” is supported by the evidence. By this standard of review the decision of the trial court upholding the action of the board of supervisors should be affirmed.
Petitions for a rehearing were denied July 19, 1984. Lewis, J.,* was of the opinion that the petitions should be granted. The petitions of all respondents for a hearing by the Supreme Court were denied September 27, 1984. Kaus, J., and Grodin, J., were of the opinion that the petitions should be granted.

Assigned by the Chairperson of the Judicial Council.

 Assigned by the Chairperson of the Judicial Council.