Ogo Associates v. City of Torrance

Opinion

FLEMING, Acting P. J.

Ogo Associates (Ogo), a partnership, and Torrance Properties (Properties), a limited partnership, appeal a judgment of the superior court denying their petition for a writ of mandate to compel the City of Torrance (Torrance) to issue Ogo a permit to build a federally financed 86-unit apartment project for persons with low incomes.

Properties owns approximately three acres of undeveloped land in an area of Torrance known as Victor Precinct. Land use in the Victor Precinct is mixed—apartment house, agricultural, light manufacturing, institutional —and much of the land is vacant. In September 1970 Properties contracted to sell its land to Ogo for $346,000 on condition that Ogo obtain a permit from Torrance to build low-income apartments financed by the federal government under section 236 of the National Housing Act (Pub. L. No. 90-448; see 12 U.S.C.A. §§ 1701,1715z-l). For the previous eight years appellants’ property had been classified as R3, a zoning that would have allowed construction of the apartments. Ogo obtained its financing and applied for a building-permit, but before the permit could be issued the Torrance City Council in May 1971 enacted an emergency ordinance imposing a moratorium on building permits and dwelling-unit construction in the part of Victor Precinct that included the site of Ogo’s proposed low-income apartments. In August 1971 the city council enacted a second moratorium on the issuance of building permits in the Victor Precinct area,, and shortly thereafter it adopted a permanent ordinance rezoning the area to ML, a classification which limited land use to light manufacturing purposes only.

In the trial court appellants contended that but for the moratorium and rezoning ordinances Torrance would have issued Ogo a building permit; that unconstitutional racial and economic discrimination motivated enactment of the ordinances; that because of this taint the ordinances were in

[833]

valid, and Torrance should be ordered to issue the requested building permit. The trial court denied relief, holding that enactment of the moratorium ordinances was proper, that appellants were not entitled to the relief sought because, (1) Ogo had not satisfied all conditions for issuance of a building permit prior to the time Torrance enacted its moratorium ordinances, and (2) appellants had not exhausted their administrative remedies by applying to the city council for a variance from the rezoning ordinance. In view of these procedural rulings the trial court did not pass on the constitutional validity of the rezoning ordinance, nor did it attempt to evaluate the voluminous mass of evidentiary material which had been brought before it.