PIERI v. SAN FRANCISCO

Filed 2/21/06 Certified for publication 3/16/06 (order attached)

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FOUR

The City and County of San Francisco (the City) appeals after the trial court granted the petition for writ of mandate of Jackie Pieri, Lavinia Turner, and Small Property Owners of San Francisco (collectively Pieri), concluding the City's relocation assistance ordinance on its face violated the Ellis Act (Gov. Code,^[1] § 7060 et seq.). We reverse.

I. BACKGROUND

Jackie Pieri and Lavinia Turner own residential rental properties in San Francisco which they seek to remove from the rental market. Small Property Owners of San Francisco is an organization seeking to promote home ownership in San Francisco. They filed a petition for writ of mandate on March 2, 2005, alleging the City's relocation assistance ordinance (ordinance No. 21-05), which required landlords to provide relocation assistance to their tenants when removing property from the rental market (S.F. Admin. Code, ch. 37, § 37.9A, subd. (e)(3)), facially violated the Ellis Act. The petition alleged the relocation ordinance was not reasonably related to the tenants' need for assistance, and therefore impermissibly placed a prohibitive price on the right to withdraw property from the rental market. The trial court granted the petition, ruling that the relocation ordinance facially violated the Ellis Act.

II. DISCUSSION

The Ellis Act was passed in response to a 1984 ruling of the California Supreme Court, Nash v. City of Santa Monica (1984) 37 Cal.3d 97, which permitted a city to restrict the circumstances in which owners of residential properties could evict tenants in order to withdraw from the rental market. (See Channing Properties v. City of Berkeley (1992) 11 Cal.App.4th 88, 91 (Channing Properties); § 7060.7.) It provides that no public entity may â€