Court Opinion

ID: 9641973
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:44:43.338646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:41.350881
License: Public Domain

SAWTELLE, District Judge
(concurring).
There is no question in this case of the power of the city of Los Angeles to enact zoning laws, for the highest courts of the states and of the federal government have upheld the right of a municipality to place reasonable restrictions upon property development within its own limits. The demands of modern urban life, the growth of civic spirit, the ever-increasing necessity of social control for the general welfare — all of these factors have brought about an increased attention to city planning. Nowhere, perhaps, is such a plan more necessary than in a city like Los Angeles, whose area is larger than that of many counties, and whose basic development has' been that of a residential community. So' long as the duly constituted authorities of this or of any other city proceed to enact zoning laws in a manner that is not arbitrary and does not deprive citizens of their constitutional rights, then the court will not interfere. Even in cases where the validity of the legislative classification for zoning purposes is fairly debatable, the legislative judgment must be allowed. Radice v. New York, 264 U. S. 292, 44 S. Ct. 325, 68 L. Ed. 690.
There is nothing in the record to show or even indicate that the legislative body acted arbitrarily or without warrant of law, and, this being so, the courts have not the right to review or annul their action. The trial judge ruled out testimony concerning the manner in *535which, the passage of the original excepting ordinance was effected and which by implication allows the property of the appellants to be considered as industrial rather than as residential, and there is nothing in the record as it stands to indicate that the revoking of that permission was more arbitrary than the granting of it. It is admitted by the appel-lees that the Standard Oil Company, acting under rights allowed it by the permissive ordinance, had expended .certain sums of money in preparation for drilling an oil well upon the property in question, but the prohibitive ordinance was no more an arbitrary taking of the money so expended than was the permissive ordinance an arbitrary destruction of property rights that had been created by the investment of large sums of money in the Monte Mar Vista Tract, Glenville Square, Cheviot Hills, Walter G. McCarthy-Beverly Business Center, and the Pacific Military Aeademy, all real estate developments near enough to the land of the appellants as to be affected by the character of development permitted there.
In formulating its zoning laws, the city of Los Angeles did not attempt to prohibit pumping oil from wells already drilled. But to prohibit oil development in an area not heretofore used for that purpose involves a different question, one in which we cannot deny that the city of Los Angeles acted within its powers. The courts have held that a city may prevent an owner’s selling his property for business purposes when the value as business property is 100 or 200 per cent, greater than the value as residential property, Zahn v. Board of Public Works, 195 Cal. 497, 234 P. 388; Id., 274 U. S. 325, 47 S. Ct. 594, 71 L. Ed. 1074; the question is similar in this case. There is not a complete destruction of property rights, for the trial court found that the value of this property for residential purposes was at least $10,000 per acre, whereas its value for industrial development, that is, drilling for oil,-was purely speculative.
The Standard Oil Company and the Mar-blehead Land Company are in no position to assert that they have been misled or deprived of 'a constitutional right. They knew the facts as to the development of the surrounding property and that several high-class residential districts had been built up whose value would be greatly impaired by oil development in their vicinity. The appellants must have realized that the granting of special privileges to themselves would have a harmful effeet on the property of those around them; they must have realized also that the dominant trend of the city’s development was residential and that to interfere with or cheek that growth would be harmful to the city as a whole, and that industrialization of any area in the general line of residential growth would be contrary to the whole plan of the zoning commission. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, the ordinance whereby the city of Los Angeles denied to the appellants the right to drill for oil on their land seems to be a logical part of the general scheme of growth, and not an arbitrary act working undue hardship on persons or corporations.