Del Mar v. California Coastal Commission

California Court of Appeal Jan 27, 1984 No. AO23339Published

Before: King

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Holding. The court held that the appellant did not acquire a vested right to divide her property because the conditions for the division were not satisfied before the Coastal Zone Conservation Act took effect, and the state commission retained jurisdiction to hear the appeal.

Issues

Whether the appellant acquired a vested right to divide the lot, thereby requiring the superior court to apply the independent judgment test.
Whether the state commission lacked jurisdiction to hear the appeal following the certification of a local coastal program.

Disposition. Affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“A right to divide a parcel becomes vested, however, only when approval of a final map is “truly ministerial.””

“[U]ntil the subdivider proves that he has performed the requirements and conditions imposed by the local governing body’s approval of the tentative map, the local agency must disapprove the final map.”

“Thus Bailey, and appellant as his successor, never acquired a vested right to divide.”

[51]

Opinion

KING, J.

Maya Del Mar appeals from a judgment denying her petition for a writ of administrative mandamus. We affirm the judgment.

In 1972, W. R. Bailey, the owner of an undivided lot in the Point Reyes area, received approval for a division into two lots from the Marin County Planning Department, subject to dedication of street frontage and county approval of a septic system. Bailey successfully appealed the decision to the board of supervisors, and in July 1973, the planning department eliminated the road dedication condition and approved a preliminary land division map. A final map was recorded in November 1974.

In November 1972, however, the electorate had enacted the Coastal Zone Conservation Act, which required a permit for the land division. Bailey never obtained a coastal permit.

Bailey divided the lot into parcels of 14,159 square feet and 16,737 square feet and sold one of the parcels to appellant in 1977. In April 1981 she applied for a coastal permit for the lot division. The North Central Coast Regional Commission approved the application subject to certain conditions. A neighbor appealed the decision to the California Coastal Commission (the “state commission”).

The state commission heard the appeal on September 1, 1981. Its staff recommended denial of the permit because the division was inconsistent with the local coastal program, which called for a minimum lot size of one acre, and because the slope of appellant’s lot (35 percent) exceeded local guidelines prohibiting placement of leachfields on slopes exceeding 20 percent. The state commission denied a permit. The superior court denied appellant’s petition for a writ of administrative mandamus. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1094.5.)

The superior court determined that substantial evidence supported the state commission’s denial of a permit. Appellant contends that the court should have applied the independent judgment test, because Bailey purportedly acquired a vested right to divide the lot when the Marin County Planning Department approved the division subject to conditions in 1972. (See generally

Strumsky

Del Mar v. California Coastal Commission

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KING, J.

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