COLLINS v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES (1981)

Plaintiffs propose to convert an existing 193-unit apartment building to a 190-unit condominium. The building in question is located in the Hollywood area and is a modern high-rise building with a subterranean garage.

The City of Los Angeles (City), by action of its City Council, refused to approve the conversion. Plaintiffs unsuccessfully petitioned the superior court for a writ of mandate and now appeal from that judgment. We reverse.

Plaintiffs do not challenge the power of the City to regulate condominium conversions generally. They do challenge the procedure by which the decision disapproving this proposal was arrived at.

The contentions are (1) the decision was not supported by adequate findings, which findings are required by case law and by the City's own ordinances, (2) the City's ordinances which establish the procedure are unconstitutionally vague and lack adequate standards for the exercise of the regulatory power, and (3) the evidence does not support the decision.

Inasmuch as the full administrative record is not before us we cannot resolve the sufficiency of the evidence issue. Since we have concluded, however, that the findings are themselves inadequate and do not support the decision, whether or not those findings are supported by sufficient evidence is of no moment. Further, in view of our resolution of this matter, as we will discuss infra, we need not reach the question of the constitutionality of the ordinances under attack.

The City has created a three-step procedure for processing applications for condominium conversions with the City Council having the final authority to approve or disapprove. At each level there is a provision for a public hearing at which both oral testimony and documentary evidence may be proffered.

The initial decision in each case rests with a hearing officer who is denominated as a Deputy Advisory Agency. An appeal from the decision of the Deputy Advisory Agency to the City Planning Commission is available to anyone affected and aggrieved by the decision of the Deputy Advisory Agency. (L.A.Mun.Code, ch. 1, art. 7, § 17.06 A.3.) From that point, an appeal to the City Council again is available to any affected person. (L.A.Mun.Code, ch. 1, art. 7, § 17.06 A.4.)

Although the second and third steps in the process are denoted as “appeals”, the fact that a public hearing with the taking of evidence is mandated, gives to each of these proceedings a “de novo” status.

The requirement of exhaustion of administrative remedies as a condition to securing judicial review makes it such that in each instance judicial review will be confined to the action of the City Council and thus the requirement of findings supported by substantial evidence is applicable to that body.

Regardless of whether the City's ordinances require it, the City Council must make findings sufficient to apprise the parties of whether and on what basis they should seek judicial review and sufficient to apprise a reviewing court of the rationale and basis for the City Council's decision. (Topanga Assn. For a Scenic Community v. County of Los Angeles, 11 Cal.3d 506, 113 Cal.Rptr. 836, 522 P.2d 12.)

“We further conclude that implicit in [Code Civ.Proc.] sections 1094.5 is a requirement that the agency which renders the challenged decision must set forth findings to bridge the analytic gap between the raw evidence and ultimate decision or order. If the Legislature had desired otherwise, it could have declared as a possible basis for issuing mandamus the absence of substantial evidence to support the administrative agency's action. By focusing, instead, upon the relationships between evidence and findings and between findings and ultimate action, the Legislature sought to direct the reviewing court's attention to the analytic route the administrative agency traveled from evidence to action.” (Topanga Assn. For a Scenic Community, supra, at 515, 113 Cal.Rptr. 836, 522 P.2d 12.)

The City's ordinances empower the Planning Commission and the City Council to “sustain, modify, reject or overrule any recommendation or ruling” of the subordinate body and requires each to make findings “not inconsistent with the ordinance.”

Underlying the entire regulatory scheme is a statement of purpose contained in Los Angeles Municipal Code section 12.5.2 A, which recites:

“PURPOSE. The purpose of these provisions is to promote greater individual choice in type, quality, price and location of housing; to provide for the housing needs of all segments of the population; to provide increased home ownership opportunities for all segments of the population; to mitigate the hardship caused by displacement of tenants, particularly those in low or moderate cost housing and those who are elderly, families with minor dependent children, the handicapped and the disabled; to promote the safety of condominium conversion projects and correction of Building Code violations in such projects; to provide adequate off-street parking; to encourage construction of new rental units to replace units lost due to conversions; to protect the existing rental housing stock by reducing conversions; and to generally regulate projects in accordance with applicable general and specific plans and with the public health, safety and welfare.”

Specific implementation of a part of the above stated Purpose is accomplished by Los Angeles Municipal Code section 12.5.2 G, which provides a formula for determining the number of required off-street parking spaces. That ordinance, however, authorizes the advisory agency in its discretion and “consistent with the purposes” of the ordinance to increase or decrease the number of required parking spaces.

In the case at bench, the sequence of events was as follows:

Plaintiffs submitted their tentative tract map to the City's Planning Department, whose staff recommended approval. Following a public hearing, the Deputy Advisory Agency also approved the project and the parking spaces available in the building.

On appeal by a group of tenants the Planning Commission voted to disapprove the project. The only findings of that body are to be found in the statement of the chairman in calling for a vote on the motion to “grant the tenants' appeal” in which he said “for the cumulative impact reasons … and the parking.”¹

Plaintiffs' appeal to the City Council was first heard by a three man “environment and planning committee” which voted two-to-one to disapprove.

When the matter came before the full Council, the first vote was six to approve, and six to disapprove. The next vote was seven-to-four in favor of approval, followed by a vote of seven-to-six to disapprove. Finally the vote was eleven-to-two to disapprove. All of this occurred without any additional evidence or change in the facts.

The ultimate and relevant facts remained unchanged from the inception of the proceedings when plaintiffs submitted their proposal. The building remained a 193-unit apartment. It was unchanged in its configuration and obviously remained in the same location.

The findings of the City Council which purport to justify its decision, are contained in the motion before the Council which was finally adopted. That motion was to adopt the Environment and Planning Committees' findings, which in turn simply restated that parking was inadequate and there was a “possible cumulative impact.” (This term apparently refers to the removal of 193 units from the rental housing market.)

In addition, the Council adopted the following findings concerning the parking factor.

“That paragraphs 1 and 2 of Subsection 6 of Section 12.5.2 H of the Los Angeles Municipal Code (Code) would require at least 345 parking spaces (residential and guest) for this 190-unit project; that there is no purpose in the Code which would support decreasing this number of parking spaces; and that Subsection A of Section 12.5.2 of the Code, in the following purpose:—‘to provide adequate off-street parking; and to generally regulate projects in accordance with applicable general and specific plans and with the public health, safety and welfare’, supports an increase in this number of parking spaces up to and including a maximum of 595 parking spaces (residential and guest) permissible pursuant to the aforementioned paragraphs because the project is located in a community (Hollywood) which is overburdened with serious parking and traffic circulation problems as evidenced by all the testimony on this issue presented to the Committee by the speakers at the public hearing of January 22, 1980.” (Emphasis added.)

Since we are here dealing with the constitutionally protected right of private property, (Cal.Const., art. I, § 1 and art. I, § 19) and an exercise of the police power by the City which impinges on that right by denying to the owner a use of the property which would otherwise be perfectly legal and proper, we subject the City's findings to a stricter scrutiny than might be the case where approval had been granted.

Assuming arguendo that the evidence in the record supports the finding that Hollywood has parking and circulation problems, the findings do not bridge the analytical gap in explaining why a building, which apparently has in excess of 300 off-street parking spaces and a potential for some increase, to serve 195 units would suddenly require 595 parking spaces or even 345 parking spaces simply because the apartments became privately owned rather than leased and were reduced in number to 190.

Further, the findings do not explain the “cumulative impact” of the change occasioned by simply a conversion to private ownership and presumptively a more stable occupancy when both 193 units on the one hand and 190 people seeking housing on the other, are simultaneously removed from the housing market.

An apartment house owner caught in the squeeze between rent control, inflation and a restriction on his ability to convert to condominiums, is entitled to a more reasonable analysis and explanation than that afforded these plaintiffs.

An objective look at what happened here, given the erratic voting record of the Council, and without adequate findings which reflect a judicious analysis of the factors involved, leads the objective observer to suspect that the demand for additional parking which exceeded the ability of the plaintiffs to provide, was simply a device used to block the conversion when political considerations were the real underlying reason for the decision.

The trial court's findings do not support the judgment since they simply state in conclusionary terms that the City Council's findings were “proper”. We have concluded as a matter of law that they were not proper and failed to comport with the requirements of the law. (Topanga Assn. For a Scenic Community v. County of Los Angeles, supra.)

The judgment is reversed and the matter is remanded to the trial court with directions to issue a writ of mandate directing the City Council to rehear the matter and make legally adequate findings.

FOOTNOTES

1.  From the record that is available to us it appears that the tenants' concern in pressing their appeal was based on the fact that they would have to move from the building into apartments where the rent might be increased because the City's rent control ordinance permits raises in certain cases of new occupancy.

COMPTON, Associate Justice.

ROTH, P. J., and BEACH, J., concur. Hearing denied; MOSK, J., dissenting.