Hotel & Motel Ass'n v. City of Oakland

This case arises from a constitutional challenge to a pair of city ordinances that place maintenance and habitability restrictions on hotels, motels, and rooming houses (“hotels”) located in Oakland, California. One ordinance requires all hotels to comply with certain maintenance, habitability, security and record-keeping standards. The other ordinance reclassifies those hotels with so-called “non-conforming use” status to “Deemed Approved” status, and requires Deemed Approved hotels to comply with the new standards in order to retain that status. Appellants, the owners and operators of various Oakland hotels as well as their trade association, challenge the ordinances as an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment. They also claim that the ordinances violate their Fourteenth Amendment rights to procedural due process and equal protection and are unconstitutionally vague. We conclude that the ordinances pass constitutional muster and thus affirm the district court’s dismissal of the action.

background

In spring of 1999, the Oakland City Council enacted two ordinances for the express purpose of improving the physical conditions in and around hotels within…