City of Ontario v. We Buy Houses Any Condition CA4/1City of Ontario v. We Buy Houses Any Condition CA4/1
APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Bernardino County, Khymberli S. Y. Apaloo, Judge. Affirmed.
Palmieri, Hennessey & Leifer, Patrick A. Hennessy and Erin B. Naderi for Defendant and Respondent.
Plaintiff City of Ontario (the City) filed this eminent domain action to obtain properties owned by We Buy Houses Any Condition, LLC (We Buy Houses). The trial court granted summary judgment against the City, finding it had not articulated a “proposed project” as required to exercise its power of eminent domain. The court then granted We Buy Houses‘s request for attorney fees, making certain reductions to the requested amounts.
The City appeals, contending that the trial court erred by requiring it to identify a particular project. We find the City‘s arguments unpersuasive and conclude that the trial court properly rejected the City‘s effort to exercise eminent domain.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
We Buy Houses owns multiple vacant lots adjacent to the Ontario International Airport in an area zoned for industrial use. According to the City, the properties “do not conform to applicable City and Airport land use requirements for development and suffer from impacts relating to Airport operations and general area blight.”
In 2021, the City held a public hearing, after which the city council adopted a resolution of necessity authorizing the City to commence eminent domain proceedings to acquire the properties. The resolution of necessity stated: “The public uses for which the real property interest is to be acquired are mitigation of airport impacts and elimination of blight in the City of Ontario, San Bernardino County, California. Sections 37350.5 and 50470 of the California Government Code authorizes [sic] the City to acquire by eminent domain real property necessary for such purposes.” The council found that “[t]he public interest and necessity require the proposed project” and “[t]he proposed project is planned or located in the manner that will be most compatible with the greatest public good and least private injury.” However, the resolution did not describe any proposed project.
The City subsequently filed this action seeking to take We Buy Houses‘s properties by eminent domain.
Relying in large part on City of Stockton v. Marina Towers LLC (2009) 171 Cal.App.4th 93 (Marina Towers), We Buy Houses filed a motion for summary judgment on the ground that the City had no public project and had failed to describe any public project in its resolution of necessity. The City argued that because the resolution of necessity stated that “property is being acquired to mitigate airport impacts and for the elimination of blight,” “the project [was] adequately stated,” and the City did not have to identify a “particular ultimate use or project.”
After entering judgment against the City, the court granted We Buy Houses‘s request for fees pursuant to
The City has appealed both the judgment and the fee award.
DISCUSSION
A. Failure to Identify a Proposed Project
1. Standard of Review
We review the trial court‘s order granting We Buy Houses‘s motion for summary judgment de novo. (Ryan v. Real Estate of Pacific, Inc. (2019) 32 Cal.App.5th 637, 642.) The City does not contend
2. Analysis
California enacted the “Eminent Domain Law,” title 7 of the Code of Civil Procedure, as a comprehensive statutory scheme to define the substantive and procedural parameters of eminent domain. (See, e.g., Property Reserve, Inc. v. Superior Court (2016) 1 Cal.5th 151, 201, fn. 20.) “Except as otherwise specifically provided by statute, the power of eminent domain may be exercised only as provided in” the Eminent Domain Law. (
Among the requirements laid out in the Eminent Domain Law, a government may exercise its power to acquire property for a proposed project only if all of the following are established:
“(a) The public interest and necessity require the project[;]
“(b) The project is planned or located in the manner that will be most compatible with the greatest public good and the least private injury[; and]
“(c) The property sought to be acquired is necessary for the project.” (
Code Civ. Proc., § 1240.030 .)
Thus, a “governing entity [must] identify a ‘project’ with a public purpose before it undertakes to condemn private property.” (Marina Towers, supra, 171 Cal.App.4th at p. 107.) “[A] resolution of necessity that does not identify a project with sufficient specificity, such that persons of ordinary intelligence can discern what the ‘project’ is, cannot support the taking of private property.” (Id. at p. 114.)
Before condemning a property, the governing body of a public entity must adopt a “resolution of necessity” that, among other things, contains a determination that these requirements have been met. (
The City concedes, ”Marina Tower correctly states that the ‘Eminent Domain Law requires that the local governing entity sufficiently identify a “project” with a public purpose before it undertakes to condemn private property.’ ” We therefore do not understand the City to be disputing that the eminent domain law requires a project, not simply a public use. Rather, the City appears to argue that its attempt to exercise eminent domain was not constrained by the eminent domain law because its authority to condemn without identifying a project was “otherwise specifically provided by statute,”
a. The CRL
The City claims because the properties at issue are blighted, the Community Redevelopment Law (CRL),
The CRL was enacted “to help local governments revitalize blighted communities and increase the supply of affordable housing.” (City of Chula Vista v. Stephenshaw (2023) 91 Cal.App.5th 352, 357 (Stephenshaw).) It created new municipal bodies, “redevelopment agencies,” to effectuate this purpose. (Ibid.) These redevelopment agencies were empowered to identify blighted project areas for proposed development. (Emmington v. Solano County Redevelopment Agency (1987) 195 Cal.App.3d 491, 497.) To substantiate a finding of blight, the redevelopment agency had to identify a ” ‘serious physical, social, or economic burden on the community which cannot reasonably be expected to be
In the 2010‘s, in response to a fiscal crisis, the Legislature froze the powers of redevelopment agencies and dissolved them. (See Stephenshaw, supra, 91 Cal.App.5th at pp. 357–358.) The Legislature suspended agencies’ power to begin “condemnation proceeding[s] or begin the process to acquire real property by eminent domain.” (
Successor agencies were required to “[c]ontinue to make payments due for enforceable obligations” while “[e]xpeditiously wind[ing] down the affairs of the redevelopment agency.” ( Despite functionally gutting it, the Legislature has not repealed the CRL in its entirety. (See generally The only provision of the CRL the City cites is “[I]t is declared to be the policy of the State: “(a) To protect and promote the sound development and redevelopment of blighted areas and the general welfare of the inhabitants of the communities in which they exist by remedying such injurious conditions through the employment of all appropriate means. “(c) That the redevelopment of blighted areas and the provisions for appropriate continuing land use and construction policies in them constitute public uses and purposes for which public money may be advanced or expended and private property acquired, and are governmental functions of state concern in the interest of health, safety, and welfare of the people of the State and of the communities in which the areas exist. “(d) That the necessity in the public interest for the provisions of this part is declared to be a matter of legislative determination.” The City claims this provision authorizes it “to seek the acquisition of the properties by eminent domain for the elimination of blight.” We do not agree that this CRL provision exempts the City from its obligation to provide an adequate project description under the eminent domain law. (See Nor would such an exception serve the stated objectives of this CRL provision. This provision is focused on “the sound development and redevelopment of blighted areas,” and provides “it is in the public interest to employ the power of eminent domain” when “the redevelopment of blighted areas cannot be accomplished by private enterprise alone.” ( Marina Towers does not support such a result, as the City contends. Although the court in Marina Towers discussed the CRL at some length, it ultimately concluded that “[t]he CRL is inapplicable to this case” because the City of Stockton had “consistently denied condemning this property under the authority of the CRL.” (Marina Towers, supra, 171 Cal.App.4th at pp. 106, 107.) The court therefore analyzed the case solely under the eminent domain law. (Id. at pp. 107–113.) The City relies on a sentence in Marina Towers referring to a “safe harbor of the CRL” to support its argument that the City was not required to identify a project for the elimination of blight. This sentence reads as follows: “Because [the City of Stockton] did not employ the redevelopment agency or redevelopment law to condemn [the owner‘s] parcels, it may not take advantage of the safe harbor of the CRL to validate the resolution of necessity. An identifiable ‘project’ with a public purpose must be set forth in the resolution.” (Marina Towers, supra, 171 Cal.App.4th at p. 111.) The City claims that because the court used the disjunctive—“redevelopment agency or redevelopment law“—if a city “employ[s]” the CRL, it need not identify a specific “project” that would address blight. The City is reading too much into this sentence. The basic point Marina Towers was making was that the provisions of the CRL were inapplicable because the City of Stockton was not claiming to be acting under the CRL. Thus, the court did not have occasion to decide what the result would have been if the city had invoked the CRL. Cases are not authority for propositions not considered. (People v. Ault (2004) 33 Cal.4th 1250, 1268, fn. 10.) Moreover, although the court in Marina Towers suggested that a redevelopment agency was not required to identify specific property uses if it followed prescribed procedures in exercising its powers of condemnation (Marina Towers, supra, 171 Cal.App.4th at p. 106), the CRL did require redevelopment agencies to formulate detailed redevelopment plans before taking property by eminent domain. ( For similar reasons, the City‘s reliance on Anaheim Redevelopment Agency v. Dusek (1987) 193 Cal.App.3d 249, is misplaced. There, the court was asked to resolve whether a redevelopment agency had properly identified a “public use.” (Id. at p. 263.) The agency had passed a resolution “to acquire the Pickwick Hotel to eliminate blight and for redevelopment purposes. . . .” (Id. at p. 252.) The agency‘s redevelopment plan “specifically targeted the Pickwick for condemnation and demolition.” (Id. at p. 253, fn. 5.) The court easily held that the elimination of blight was a public use and found it “was established when the redevelopment plan was adopted[,] at which time the Agency acquired the statutory power to condemn property within the redevelopment district.” (Id. at p. 264.) Although the owner claimed “redevelopment agencies must specifically identify what use is to be made of each parcel within a project area or they will acquire any property for any purpose without any explanation whatsoever,” the court held that the agency was permitted to implement its redevelopment plan by “attempting to remove a blighted structure to renew interest in developing the area” and waiting until “a specific proposal for the property was accepted.” (Ibid.) Here, there is no redevelopment agency and no redevelopment plan adopted pursuant to the CRL. Dusek did not hold that a city‘s general allusion to blight authorizes the exercise of condemnation powers without regard to whether it has a proposed project. Moreover, the only issue in Dusek was whether there was a sufficient statement of public use; no argument was made that there was an inadequate project description. (Id. at pp. 263–264.) Finally, the City briefly claims “the CRL is not the exclusive source of authority for acquiring property by eminent domain for the elimination of blight.” However, it fails to explain how any other authority would excuse the City from the requirement to identify a project. “We are not bound to develop [an] appellant[‘s] arguments for them. [Citation.] The absence of cogent legal argument or citation to authority allows this court to treat the contentions as” forfeited. (In re Marriage of Falcone & Fyke (2008) 164 Cal.App.4th 814, 830.) Separately, the City claims the trial court failed to consider or address authorities empowering it to acquire and make use of land for airport-related The City first cites The City also cites Similarly, the City contends there is “[s]pecific authority for acquiring property for airport and aviation purposes.” The City cites “[A] local agency may acquire property by . . . condemnation . . . for the purposes of this article and may use any real property which it owns or acquires within or without its limits as a site for an airport. The local agency may erect and maintain hangars, mooring masts, flying fields, and places for flying, take-off, landing, and storage of aircraft, together with signal lights, radio equipment, service shops, conveniences, appliances, works, structures, and other air navigation facilities, now known or hereafter invented, of such number and character and in such places as may be necessary or convenient.” The City also cites Neither of these provisions purports to excuse a local agency from following the eminent domain law‘s requirement to identify a project. Moreover, the City does not argue that it needs the properties for “an airport” or any of the airport-related uses listed. That is, the City is not purporting to Finally, the City notes that, “All or any portion of land acquired by a governmental agency for airport purposes may be used for park or recreation purposes until actually needed for airport development.” ( An award of attorney fees “is left to the sound discretion of the trial judge, who is in the best position to evaluate the services rendered, and the court‘s decision will not be disturbed on appeal unless it is clearly wrong.” (City of Oakland v. Oakland Raiders (1988) 203 Cal.App.3d 78, 85 (Raiders).) The City complains that the trial court abused its discretion by improperly awarding fees for services unrelated to We Buy Houses‘s summary judgment motion. Under “Reasonable attorney‘s fees . . . where such fees were reasonably and necessarily incurred to protect the defendant‘s interests in the proceeding in preparing for trial, during trial, and in any subsequent judicial proceedings whether such fees were incurred for services rendered before or after the filing of the complaint.” ( The City nonetheless suggests courts must determine in retrospect what ended up being necessary to the disposition. The City cites no authority for this interpretation. And we have found that courts take a much broader reading of these provisions. For example, in City of San Jose v. Great Oaks Water Co. (1987) 192 Cal.App.3d 1005, an eminent domain action was resolved by summary judgment on the grounds that the plaintiff failed to comply with The City next claims the trial court‘s “ruling provides no basis for determining what was or was not reasonably and necessarily incurred.” We disagree. The court held a hearing on the fee motion and explained its reasoning to the parties. The court first addressed We Buy Houses‘s use of two law firms, explaining that it made “substantial reductions on [one] firm . . . because their fees were really high and they didn‘t demonstrate that they had any real special knowledge [or] experience. The court further explained particular categories of fees which it found were not reasonable, including certain post-complaint communications, the drafting of a trial brief, and duplicative time spent on the summary judgment briefing. The City did The City relies almost exclusively on an expert report that the trial court found was not worthy of much weight. As the court explained, the City‘s expert had no “demonstrated background in the type of work that was done in this particular case” and no demonstrated “knowledge about reasonable rates for the Inland Empire.” The City does not argue that this determination was unreasonable or otherwise address the trial court‘s credibility determination. We therefore must assume that the trial court‘s assessment of the expert was proper and appropriate weight was given to his report. The City argues at length that fees billed for research were excessive, because “from the start of the case until its summary judgment conclusion, We Buy Houses knew that the objection on which it prevailed would be based solely on Marina Towers.” In fact, We Buy Houses raised a number of other objections in opposition to the City‘s proposed exercise of eminent domain and in its answer to the City‘s complaint. The trial court was not persuaded by the City‘s contention that We Buy Houses “could have done this summary judgment motion only on one issue and so, therefore, [it] should have only focused on the one issue the whole entire time.” We agree that there is no basis to limit the recovery of fees to efforts related solely to the issues that ultimately disposed of the case. The City also argues that there was no need for We Buy Houses to engage two law firms. As noted above, the trial court agreed and reduced the fees of the second firm by over 70 percent, from $33,340.00 to $9,486.50. The City fails to establish that this reduction was unreasonable.2 Similarly, although the City complains of duplicative work between two lead partners representing We Buy Houses, the trial court considered this and halved much of each of their time. The City has not shown that this was an unreasonable determination. The City points to several other instances of what it claims were excessive fees, relying on its own conclusory statements and its discredited expert‘s opinions for support. The City has not shown the trial court‘s award was “clearly wrong.” (Raiders, supra, 203 Cal.App.3d at p. 85.) We decline the City‘s invitation to second-guess the trial court‘s reasoned decision. The judgment and attorney fee award are affirmed. We Buy Houses is entitled to its costs on appeal. BUCHANAN, J. WE CONCUR: HUFFMAN, Acting P. J. KELETY, J.
b. Airport-Related Authorities
B. Attorney Fees
1. Standard of Review
2. Analysis