Guimont v. City of Seattle

896 P.2d 70, 77 Wash. App. 74
CourtCourt of Appeals of Washington
DecidedFebruary 27, 1995
Docket33624-0-I
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 896 P.2d 70 (Guimont v. City of Seattle) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Guimont v. City of Seattle, 896 P.2d 70, 77 Wash. App. 74 (Wash. Ct. App. 1995).

Opinion

Agid, J.

William Patrick Guimont, The Gemo Co., Inc., d/b/a National Trailer Park, Marie Guimont Trust, and tenants of National Trailer Park (collectively Guimont) appeal a summary judgment order dismissing their declaratory jud *77 ment action against the City of Seattle in which they contended that a city ordinance regulating mobile home parks effects an unconstitutional taking and violates their right to substantive due process. 1 We hold that the ordinance is constitutional on its face, that the challenges to it as applied to Guimont are not ripe and that the ordinance does not violate Appellants’ right to due process. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court.

I

Facts

National Trailer Park (Park) has been a mobile home park since the late 1940’s. The Park property was annexed to the City of Seattle (City) in 1954 and is zoned Cl, commercial use. Mobile home parks are permitted residential uses in Cl zones. A mobile home park is defined as "a tract of land . . . rented for the use of more than one (1) mobile home occupied as a dwelling unit.” Seattle Municipal Code (SMC) 23.84.032; SMC 23.47.004. There are approximately 120 lots in the Park.

In 1989, the Legislature passed, and in 1990 amended, the Mobile Home Relocation Assistance Act (Act), RCW 59.21, which required mobile home park owners to contribute money toward tenants’ relocation costs when mobile home parks closed or converted to other uses. Laws of 1989, ch. 201; Laws of 1990, ch. 171. The Supreme Court declared the Act unconstitutional on due process grounds in June 1993. Guimont v. Clarke, 121 Wn.2d 586, 854 P.2d 1 (1993), cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 1216 (1994) (Guimont I). While that case was pending, the Legislature again amended the Act to its present form. Laws of 1991, ch. 327. The Act now pro *78 vides that tenants will receive relocation assistance payments from the State and, if there are insufficient State funds, from park owners. RCW 59.21.020(3), (4). The 1991 amendments also provide relocation assistance to tenants who use recreational vehicles (RV’s) as residences. RCW 59.21.020(1); Laws of 1991, ch. 327, § 11. Guimont I does not address the 1991 amendments, and they are not challenged in this appeal.

In July 1990, the City passed Ordinance 115183 (Ordinance), codified at SMC 22.904.400-.470. 2 The Ordinance excludes "recreational vehicles” from the definition of a mobile home, 3 reserves mobile home parks solely for mobile homes, and provides that RV’s may not be placed on mobile home lots which become vacant after the effective date of the Ordinance and can accommodate mobile homes. SMC 22.904.400. Thus, those in place on the effective date are "grandfathered” and permitted to remain. There are exceptions to the RV prohibition for lots which cannot physically accommodate a mobile home. SMC 22.904.400. The Ordinance also requires park owners to submit a relocation report and plan to the City’s Department of Construction and Land Use (DCLU) before closing a park or changing its use. SMC 22.904.410. The purpose of the relocation report is to inform the City of mobile home tenants’ needs and living situations and detail the ways in which the park owner intends to comply with RCW 59.20, the Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act, and RCW 59.21, the Mobile Home Relocation Assistance Act. SMC 22.904.420. The Ordinance requires park owners to pay the relocation assistance required by the original Act, provide tenants with relocation resources, and help them obtain and complete application forms for state-mandated relocation assistance and move their mobile homes from the park.

*79 In August 1991, the City notified Guimont that it was violating the Ordinance because RV’s were occupying Park spaces designed to accommodate mobile homes. The City ordered Guimont to remove the RV’s by September 15,1991. The deadline was later changed to November 1, 1991.

II

Unconstitutional Taking Arguments

Guimont asserts that the RV prohibition results in an unconstitutional taking, both on its face and as applied to the Park, 4 contending that we should apply a taking analysis to each lot in the Park rather than to the property as a whole. A constitutional taking analysis of a challenge to a land use regulation ordinarily examines its impact on the regulated property as a whole, not on a portion of the property. Presbytery of Seattle v. King Cy., 114 Wn.2d 320, 334-35, 787 P.2d 907, cert. denied, 498 U.S. 911 (1990). In certain limited circumstances, a different approach may be appropriate. However, we need not decide that issue in this case. For the reasons discussed below in conjunction with Guimont’s as-applied challenge, we do not know at this juncture whether Guimont would be left with no economically viable use of any particular lot in the Park once the provisions of the Ordinance grandfathering certain lots and exempting others are applied to the property. See SMC 22.904.400. Therefore, we will examine the effect of the Ordinance on the entire Park.

Fortunately, this case does not require us to completely rehash the complex, confusing and often ethereal realm of theoretical law that has developed in Washington under the taking clause of the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. See, eg., Richard L. Settle, Regulatory Taking Doctrine in Washington: Now You See It, Now *80 You Don’t, 12 U. Puget Sound L. Rev. 339 (1989), Guimont I, 121 Wn.2d at 614-25 (Utter, J., concurring). As we have no desire to add more heat to the discussion at the expense of light, we will not recite all of the tests and analytical frameworks discussed in Guimont I, Robinson v. Seattle, 119 Wn.2d 34, 830 P.2d 318, cert. denied, 113 S. Ct. 676 (1992) and Sintra, Inc. v. Seattle, 119 Wn.2d 1, 829 P.2d 765, cert. denied sub nom. Robinson v. Seattle, 113 S. Ct. 676 (1992), but will discuss those portions of a taking claim analysis that the issues raised here implicate.

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Bluebook (online)
896 P.2d 70, 77 Wash. App. 74, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/guimont-v-city-of-seattle-washctapp-1995.