Carson Harbor Village, Ltd. v. City of Carson

“We are called upon to consider, yet again, a takings challenge to mobile home rent control laws.” Levald, Inc. v. City of Palm Desert, 998 F.2d 680, 683 (9th Cir.1993). Carson Harbor Village, Ltd. (“Carson Harbor”) is a large mobile home park located in the City of Carson (“City”). This case arises out of the City’s handling of Carson Harbor’s June 2000 and April 2001 applications for rent increases. In June 2000, Carson Harbor applied for *825 monthly rent increases ranging from approximately $223 to $241 per mobile home space, but the City’s Mobilehome Park Rental Review Board (“Board”) approved an increase of only $14.29 per space. 1 Thereafter, Carson Harbor sued in federal district court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause. The district court dismissed Carson Harbor’s regulatory takings claims as unripe under Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Carson Harbor now appeals.

We agree that this regulatory' takings claim is unripe. Carson Harbor has failed to avail itself of state procedures for seeking just compensation, as required by Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson…

concurring specially.

Because Carson Harbor has made no effort to seek compensation for an alleged taking through a writ of mandamus and Kavanau adjustment, I agree that its regulatory takings claim must be dismissed as unripe. Any analysis of the California procedures in this case would necessarily be speculative. But I write separately to express my concern that California’s procedures may not provide “just compensation” because the burden of compensation falls not on the government as the representative of the benefitting general public, but on a select group of future tenants.

*831 The Supreme Court has repeatedly explained the central purpose of the Takings Clause: “The Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that private property shall not be taken for a public use without just compensation was designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as.a whole.” Armstrong v. United States, 364 U.S. 40, 49 , 80 S.Ct. 1563 , 4 L.Ed.2d 1554 (1960); see also Palazzolo v. Rhode Island, 533 U.S. 606, 618-19 , 121 S.Ct. 2448 , 150 L.Ed.2d 592 (2001) (citing Armstrong to illustrate “the purpose of the…