City of Los Angeles v. State of California

The State of California and the State Attorney General appeal from the judgment entered in favor of the City of Los Angeles declaring subdivision (d) of Government Code section 65860 to be “unconstitutional on its face for the following reasons: a. It is vague and unintelligible, b. It purports to intrude into matters traditionally reserved to municipalities without any apparent over-riding concern contrary to article XI, section 5 of the California Constitution, c. It is special legislation which fails to meet existing criteria for singling out one municipality for special treatment and legislation, and it discriminates invidiously and unconstitutionally between charter cities in the same county for no legally recognized reason in violation of article IV, section 16(b) of the California Constitution. ” (Italics added.) As hereinafter appears, we have concluded the judgment should be reversed.

Over the years the Legislature has enacted a number of statutes as part of the state Planning and Zoning Law (Gov. Code, § 65000 et seq.). As we recently declared, the thrust of the statutory scheme embodied in this law has been to “insure that decisions made by local governmental…