Shelter Creek Development Corporation; Leo A. O'Hearn; Margaret E. O'Hearn v. City of Oxnard

Summary

The Ninth Circuit held that plaintiffs' constitutional challenge to Oxnard Ordinance No. 1805 was not ripe because they had not applied for a variance or special use permit, and the City had therefore made no final, authoritative determination regarding the ordinance's application to their property. The court vacated the district court's judgment on the merits and remanded with directions to dismiss the action. The court explained that federal ripeness requirements were not altered by the California Supreme Court's state-law determination that the ordinance did not apply to the property.

Holdings

1. A landowner's constitutional challenge to the application of a land-use ordinance is not ripe until the appropriate local administrative body has issued a final and authoritative determination regarding the type and intensity of development permitted on the property, ordinarily after the landowner submits a meaningful development application and seeks a variance or special-use permit when available.
2. A state court's determination that a land-use ordinance is inapplicable under state law does not eliminate the separate federal ripeness requirement for a federal constitutional challenge to the ordinance's application.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the plaintiffs' facial and as-applied constitutional challenges to Ordinance No. 1805 were ripe for federal judicial adjudication when they had not applied for a special-use permit or variance.
2. Whether the California Supreme Court's state-law determination that the property was exempt from the ordinance eliminated the federal ripeness requirement.

Disposition

vacated