Denham, LLC v. City of Richmond
Annotate this CaseThe “Hillside Residential” designation in the Richmond General Plan 2030 included single-family housing and clustered multifamily residential on developable parcels below the 400-foot elevation with a density of up to five dwelling units per acre. The Initiative was filed in 2016. Pursuant to Elections Code 9215, the city adopted the initiative without alteration. The Initiative limited development and land use in the “Initiative Area," (38 parcels), prohibiting all residential development. The minimum parcel size is 20 acres; the maximum floor area for all buildings in a parcel is 10,000 square feet; and, if residences and residential accessory buildings are permitted, they may not exceed 5,000 square feet of the 10,000 square-foot maximum. The initiative provided that if a court found the "prohibition on residential use constitutes a taking," one single-family home may be built on each parcel (20 acres). The initiative included specific general plan amendments, "to avoid inconsistency with state housing law” and reduced the city’s developable land for residential and mixed-use development from 228 acres to 148 acres. Landowners sued. The trial court concluded the initiative was inconsistent with the general plan and could not be given effect. The court of appeal agreed that the initiative caused the general plan to become impermissibly inconsistent but disagreed as to the appropriate remedy. The court directed the trial court to order the city to cure the inconsistency.
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