Brookside Investments, Ltd. v. City of El Monte

In 1990 the City of El Monte enacted by initiative an ordinance that prohibited the El Monte City Council (City Council) from passing any form of mobilehome park rent control. In 2012 the City Council sponsored a successful ballot measure to repeal that ordinance and then in 2013 enacted ordinance No. 2829, the Mobilehome Space Rent Stabilization Ordinance, a program of rent control for mobilehome parks with more than 100 mobilehome park spaces.

Brookside Investments, Ltd. (Brookside), which owns and operates Brookside Mobile Country Club, a large mobilehome park, sued the City of El Monte, alleging the City Council’s actions in proposing and advocating repeal of the 1990 ordinance violated an express prohibition of such activity in that ordinance. The superior court granted El Monte’s motion for summary judgment. On appeal from the judgment Brookside repeats its argument concerning the scope of the prohibitory language in the 1990 ordinance and also argues the City Council’s actions violated the California Constitution’s implicit withholding of authority for a local government to propose initiative measures that amend or repeal earlier voter-approved ordinances. We…