Ruling Reversed on Low-Rent Housing Ballot Measures

In a victory for Los Angeles and other cities, the state Supreme Court reversed itself Thursday and held that officials need not provide details of proposed low-rent public housing projects before seeking voter approval.

The decision removed a significant legal threat to about 70,000 housing units in California--30,000 of them in Los Angeles--that have been approved in previous elections but not yet constructed.

In a 6-1 ruling, the justices overturned a decision they issued in December, 1988, requiring municipal officials to state the size, type and location of the proposal on the ballot. The court, now with two new members, said Thursday that authorities must disclose only the maximum number of units to be built within a municipality.

In an opinion by Justice Joyce L. Kennard, the court rejected contentions that ballot measures must provide details of a project so that voters may intelligently weigh its financial and aesthetic effect on the community.

While those arguments may have “logic and force,” nothing in the history, language or stated purpose of a 1950 constitutional amendment calling for referendums on these projects required such detail, the court said.

The justices noted that for decades since the referendum requirement was enacted, officials throughout the state have provided voters only with a general description of proposed projects. “Public confidence in the institutions of government is undermined when practices uniformly followed by public entities over many years are declared unconstitutional,” Kennard wrote.

The court also said if voters wanted to know more, they could turn down a general measure and demand a new measure citing the size, design or time limits on the projects. And if approved housing is later found to be not needed, the electorate can rescind its authorization of a project, the justices said.

In dissent, Justice Stanley Mosk, who wrote the majority opinion in the now-abandoned 1988 ruling, said ballot proposals may now be phrased in terms so broad as to be “virtually meaningless” to the voters, threatening their right to control the cost and aesthetic impact of proposed projects.

Officials will be able to “stockpile” units for an unlimited time, preventing voters from assessing the fiscal effects of a project when it is actually built, Mosk said.

Los Angeles Assistant City Atty. Julie P. Downey welcomed the court’s reversal of its earlier stance. “The previous decision had disrupted planning and posed potentially cataclysmic problems,” she said.

Federal funding and other support for public housing remains scarce, Downey observed, and the 1988 decision had added considerable confusion as to what point in the delicate and complicated process a project should be taken to the voters.

Susan Burnett Luten, an Oakland attorney for a group challenging the lack of detail in a proposed project, expressed dismay with Thursday’s decision. While the court did not directly explain its turnaround, Luten suggested that the justices may have bowed to a concerted campaign by state and local housing officials. “There was a lot of pressure and, unfortunately, the court may have caved in,” Luten said. She added that if all 70,000 units pending in California are built, it will cost taxpayers an estimated $14 billion.

The case arose in the city of Berkeley, where in separate elections in 1977 and 1981, voters had approved proposals for a total of 500 units of low- and moderate-income public housing. In 1985, opponents of one 75-unit project filed suit to block the development, contending that the two ballot measures had lacked sufficient detail.

In its 1988 ruling, the high court upheld the opponents’ contention in a 4-3 vote. Mosk, joined by Justices Edward A. Panelli and David N. Eagleson and now-retired Justice Marcus M. Kaufman, formed the majority. Justice John A. Arguelles, now retired, and Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas and Justice Allen E. Broussard dissented, warning that the decision could prove a serious setback to already-approved housing plans throughout the state.

A broad coalition of state and local officials, including those from Los Angeles, then sought a rehearing in the case--and in March, 1989, the court, in a rare action, agreed to reconsider.

In Thursday’s decision, Kennard, who came on the court in April, 1989, was joined by Lucas, Broussard, Panelli, Eagleson and Justice Armand Arabian, who took the high court bench last March.

In another change of heart, the high court also announced that it will not hear a challenge to the legality of a far-reaching anti-tax initiative that foes claim could nullify three other major measures on the fall ballot, even if those three win voter approval.

The justices had said last month that they would review a suit filed by state Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy and others contending that Proposition 136, the proposed Taxpayers Right to Vote Act, was unconstitutional and should be removed from the ballot.

Opponents said the measure contained a unique and unprecedented “ballot virus” which, by requiring two-thirds voter approval of any special taxes included in an initiative, could improperly eliminate two anti-crime measures--one sponsored by Van de Kamp, the other by McCarthy--as well as the “nickel-a-drink” alcohol-tax initiative.

Only twice in recent history had the court intervened in a ballot-measure dispute before an election. In a brief order issued Wednesday, the justices dismissed the case for now.

“Upon further consideration, it appears to the court that insufficient time remains for pre-election review of the pending initiative . . . without significantly disrupting the election process,” the court said. The order left the way clear for opponents to challenge the measure after the fall election.

Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., welcomed dismissal of the case. “We’ve always believed this was a politically motivated lawsuit with absolutely no merit,” Fox said.