Witt Home Ranch, Inc. v. County of Sonoma

This appeal requires us to address an issue left unresolved in Gardner v. County of Sonoma (2003) 29 Cal.4th 990 [ 129 Cal.Rptr.2d 869 , 62 P.3d 103 ] (Gardner): whether a subdivision map approved and recorded under the statutes in effect prior to the state’s first modem land use planning laws, enacted in 1929, is valid under the Subdivision Map Act (Act) (Gov. Code, §§ 66410-66499.37). (Gardner, at p. 1001, fn. 7.) We provide the partial answer that the Act’s grandfather provisions do not validate subdivision maps approved under the statutes in effect through 1915.

Plaintiff Witt Home Ranch, Inc. (Ranch), is the owner of a large parcel of undeveloped land in Sonoma County (County). In 1915, a map that subdivided the parcel into 25 lots was approved by the County Board of Supervisors (Board) and recorded, but the map was never implemented through sale of the individual lots. Rather, the lots have always been united as a single parcel with a single owner. In 2005, the Ranch applied to the County for certification of the individual lots on the basis of the 1915 map, but the Board mled that the map was no longer valid.

The Ranch argues that the 1915 subdivision map…