Lincoln Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Riviera Estates Ass'n

Plaintiff appeals from an adverse judgment in a declatory relief action. The subject of the action is a narrow strip of property (hereafter termed the driveway or the subject property) in lot 56 of the Riviera, an expensive single family residential area of 150 homes in the City of Los Angeles. Each home site in the tract has a frontage of 100 feet or more. With the exception of four vacant lots, the home sites have a middle value of $130,00.0 while some have a value as high as $200,000. The home owners in that tract are the members of the Riviera Estates Association, a nonstock corporation. The association and several individual home owners are the defendants herein. Plaintiff, the fee owner of the driveway seeks a declaration that it may use it as a driveway to provide ingress and egress for two lots it owns immediately outside the Riviera tract. Hereafter these two lots will be referred to as Parcel 2 Coleman and Parcel 3 Coleman. The driveway opens upon Amalfi Drive, a public street within the Riviera. This proposed driveway would extend a distance of more than 126 feet from Amalfi Drive to the two parcels, and be of a width of 21.03 feet. The defendants contend that…