Palmer v. Silveira CA6

BACKGROUND

It is undisputed that defendants own property at 4630 West Walnut Street in Soquel, unincorporated Santa Cruz County.1 Plaintiff Palmer owns property two doors to the west of defendants‘ parcel. Plaintiff Santa Cruz Properties owns two parcels fronting on Porter Street, the more northern of which touches defendants‘ southern boundary. Prior to 1986, all of these properties were apparently owned by May Gravenhorst Stauffer and Peter J. Gravenhorst (collectively, Gravenhorst/Stauffer). On June 21, 1985, defendants entered into an agreement to purchase 4630 Walnut Street from Gravenhorst/Stauffer. Although the record fails to competently establish many of the pertinent details of the sale, recitals in the documents at issue suggest that by the time the sale closed, the property was being used for partly residential and partly commercial purposes.2 According to defendants‘ trial brief, the purchase agreement ―was conditioned upon [their] ability to convert this property from residential to commercial property.‖ They assert that among the permit conditions was the provision of eight parking spaces, which was four more than were located on the 4630 Walnut parcel. The county…