Saint John's Hospital & Health Center v. City of Santa Monica

*49 Opinion

The hospital appeals from a judgment denying its petition for a writ of mandate to compel respondent board to grant it a removal permit. We affirm.

The hospital is a nonprofit hospital, qualified as a “quasi-public” entity to exercise the power of eminent domain. In 1979, pursuant to an elaborate plan to improve its parking facilities, the hospital purchased two properties containing rental units. The tenants have vacated the property and the hospital now desires to demolish them in order to complete its plan for parking space.

I

Although the Santa Monica City Charter, and the regulations adopted thereunder, provide an elaborate procedure for securing removal (demolition) permits, the hospital did not seek such a permit under that procedure. Its application for a permit was based solely on the theory that, under the facts hereinafter set forth, the board had no jurisdiction to refiise to allow the desired demolition. We reject that theory.

Under the applicable state law relating to the hospital as a “quasi-public” entity, it could secure the properties in question either by outright negotiated purchase, or by eminent domain. Here the hospital, late in 1978,…