City of San Diego v. Rancho Penasquitos Partnership

In this eminent domain action the plaintiff City of San Diego (the City) condemned 10.94 acres of real property, part of a 108.75-acre parcel of property zoned for agricultural use that was owned by the defendants Rancho Penasquitos Partnership, Ting Fang Lin, Yu Chun Huang, Cindy C. Kasai and Pai Ho Wey (collectively RPP). The City took RPP’s property for the State Route 56 freeway (SR-56) project. The City asserted at jury trial that because it had a zoning restriction in place prohibiting higher density development of properties such as RPP’s that were in the potential path of SR-56 until the SR-56 project was approved, a zoning change was not possible absent the SR-56 project, and therefore the property must be valued at its current zoning for agricultural use. The City contended the fair market value of the condemned property was $120,000 per acre, or $1,285,200 in total value, with no severance damages to RPP’s property that was not condemned because of offsetting benefits provided by the SR-56 project.

RPP argued that because the City was both the condemning agency and the entity responsible for the prohibition on development, and the restriction was designed to…