Court Opinion

ID: 9598869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:12:46.913341+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:33.975231
License: Public Domain

WHITE, J.*
I dissent.
The majority hold that it is unnecessary to determine whether section 26 is applicable to urban redevelopment for the reason that section 26 is unconstitutional in its entirety and therefore not applicable “in any and all circumstances.
With this conclusion I disagree for the reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Mulkey v. Reitman, ante, p. 545 [50 Cal.Rptr. 892, 413 P.2d 836].
Also, I am further convinced that there is nothing in section 26 which would prohibit respondent herein from entering into the agreement here in question, or any other agreement with a federal agency, upon such terms as the latter may require.
The redevelopment and housing legislation in California establishes a redevelopment agency in each community as an administrative arm of the state. Indeed, the California Health and Safety Code, section 33005, defines the term “State” to include any state agency or instrumentality.
Since property owned by a redevelopment agency is excluded from the coverage of section 26, the agency may clearly include a nondiscrimination covenant as a condition of the disposition of its own property. And a purchaser of project property, whether from the redevelopment agency or a *890subsequent purchaser of the same property, may purchase it or not, as he sees fit. However, if he does purchase he accepts the land subject to other conditions or restrictions running with the land. If these restrictions, including a nondiscrimination one, do not suit his tastes, he is under no obligation to purchase.
This is equally true with the owner of property in a redevelopment project who enters into an agreement as a participating owner, thereby avoiding the acquisition of his property by eminent domain. It seems clear to me that if one enters into an agreement to sell or to purchase property upon terms satisfactory to the buyer and seller, such an agreement is binding and enforceable. Therefore, if a person chooses to take property with a nondiscrimination covenant, the state is not interfering with any right he might have to refuse to sell in the absence of such a contract. A nondiscrimination covenant running with the land is legal and lawful, and is accepted the same as all other covenants by subsequent purchasers.
Solely upon the ground that section 26 is no barrier whatever to petitioner’s ability to comply fully with the proposed contract with a federal agency which respondent for the same reason may lawfully execute, I would issue the writ as prayed.
McComb, J., concurred.

Retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court sitting under assignment by the Chairman of the Judicial Council.