Holt v. County of Monterey

Opinion

RACANELLI, P. J.

By his complaint for mandamus and injunctive relief, plaintiff and appellant sought to compel the County of Monterey (the County) to set aside the decision of its board of supervisors approving a subdivision of the Carmel Valley Ranch. The trial court entered judgment in favor of the County based upon findings sustaining the County’s affirmative defenses of lack of standing, laches, failure to exhaust administrative remedies and equitable estoppel. On appeal, appellant challenges the validity of those findings. We affirm the judgment.

Facts

The basic facts are undisputed: In January 1975, Carmel Valley Ranch, Inc., the developer, submitted an application for a specific plan to develop the Carmel Valley Ranch and to construct 500 condominium units thereon. An environmental impact report was prepared and duly certified, and public hearings were held relating to the application. Two years later, in January 1977, the board of supervisors formally adopted the Carmel Valley Ranch specific plan.

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In January 1979, the planning commission recommended approval of the tentative subdivision map and granted a use permit for 140 condominium units, the first phase of the proposed development. The use permit approval was appealed to the board of supervisors by three inter

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ested parties: the Carmel Area Coalition, the City of Carmel and the Carmel Valley Property Owners’ Association. On March 6, 1979, the board of supervisors denied the appeal, upheld the grant of the use permit and further approved the tentative subdivision map.

On May 4, 1979, the Carmel Area Coalition

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and the City of Carmel filed suit challenging the validity of the Carmel Valley Ranch specific plan on the basis of the inadequacy of the Monterey County general plan. On May 21, 1979, a settlement was reached in that case wherein the County agreed to impose a moratorium on future development in the Carmel Valley. The underlying lawsuit was eventually dismissed.