Rancho De Calistoga, a California General Partnership v. CITY OF CALISTOGA; W. SCOTT SNOWDEN, Hearing Officer, The City of Calistoga

FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
RANCHO DE CALISTOGA, a California
General Partnership,
Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
CITY OF CALISTOGA; W. SCOTT
SNOWDEN, Hearing Officer, The
City of Calistoga,
Respondents-Appellees.
No. 12-17749
D.C. No.
3:11-cv-05015-
JSW
OPINION
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Jeffrey S. White, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted
February 13, 2015—San Francisco, California
Filed September 3, 2015
Before: M. Margaret McKeown, William A. Fletcher,
and Richard R. Clifton, Circuit Judges.
Opinion by Judge McKeown

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 2
SUMMARY*
Civil Rights
The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of an
action brought by the owner of a mobile home park who
alleged that the City of Calistoga’s mobile home rent control
laws violate the Takings, Due Process and Equal Protections
Clauses of the United States Constitution.
Addressing whether petitioner’s action was ripe, the panel
held that petitioner sufficiently “utilized” the available
judicial procedures laid out in Williamson Cnty. Reg’l
Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City,
473 U.S. 172, 186 (1985). Applying the factors set out in
Penn Central Transportation Company v. City of New York,
438 U.S. 104, 124 (1978), to the merits, the panel rejected
petitioner’s as-applied regulatory takings claim, holding that
even if the claim was not time barred, it failed because:
(1) the diminution in market value of petitioner’s property
was an inevitable consequence of the rent-control scheme but
not an unconstitutional one; (2) the rent control ordinance,
enacted after petitioner acquired the property, did not
interfere with petitioner’s reasonable investment backed
expectations; and (3) the governmental action served a public
purpose and did not amount to a physical invasion.
The panel also rejected petitioner’s separate private
takings claim, holding that the claim could not serve as a
means to evade Penn Central scrutiny, and that it was a thinly
* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 3
veiled facial challenge to the rent-control scheme, which was
both time barred and lacked merit.
The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of
petitioner’s due process claim on the ground that the alleged
conduct was covered by the Takings Clause, and also
affirmed, applying rational basis review, the dismissal of the
equal protection claim.
COUNSEL
Anthony C. Rodriguez (argued), Law Office of Anthony C.
Rodriguez, Oakland, California, for Petitioner-Appellant.
Amy E. Hoyt (argued), Burke, Williams & Sorenson,
Oakland, California; Michelle Marchetta Kenyon, City
Attorney, Calistoga, California, for Respondents-Appellees.
Michael John von Loewenfeldt, Kerr & Wagstaffe LLP, San
Francisco, California, for Amicus Curiae League of
California Cities.
R. S. Radford, Pacific Legal Foundation, Sacramento,
California, for Amicus Curiae Pacific Legal Foundation.
Robert H. Thomas and Bethany C.K. Ace, Damon Key Leong
Kupchak Hastert, Honolulu, Hawaii, for Amicus Curiae
Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association.

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 4
OPINION
McKEOWN, Circuit Judge:
Fifth Amendment takings challenges to mobile home rent
control laws are ubiquitous in this and other circuits. Quoting
Yogi Berra, we have previously characterized these claims as
“deja vu all over again.” MHC Fin. Ltd. P’ship v. City of San
Rafael, 714 F.3d 1118, 1122 (9th Cir. 2013). Each time a
court closes one legal avenue to mobile home park owners
seeking to escape rent control regimes, the owners,
undaunted, attempt to forge a new path via another novel
legal theory. This time, it is in the form of an “as-applied
private takings claim” as a claim separate and independent
from the owner’s regulatory takings claim. Alas, it is also
deja vu again with respect to the result; we decline to open
the door to using this so-called “private takings claim” as an
end-run around established regulatory-takings jurisprudence.
We hold that no regulatory taking occurred here and that
Rancho de Calistoga’s self-styled “private takings claim” is
not a separately cognizable claim. Similarly, we are not
persuaded by the related due process and equal protection
claims. We affirm the district court’s dismissal of the case.
BACKGROUND
Rancho de Calistoga (“the Park”) is a mobile home park
located in Calistoga, California. The Park, which
encompasses 26.5 acres, was originally developed by Hal C.
Aguirre and R. C. Roberts. When the Roberts and Aguirre
partnership dissolved in the mid-1970’s, one of the parcels
was transferred to Aguirre, who formed Rancho de Calistoga
(“Rancho”), the California general partnership that now owns
and operates the Park of the same name. Rancho describes

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 5
the Park as having been developed as “an alternative form of
housing for those who desired and could afford that
alternative form of housing,” and not as “low cost or low
income housing.” Zoning for the Park was approved in
October 1970.
The City of Calistoga (“the City”) had no form of mobile
home rent control until 1984, when the City adopted an
ordinance that enabled mobile home park tenants to challenge
rent increases. The ordinance was amended several times,
and in 2007, the City adopted Ordinance No. 644, entitled
“Mobile Home Park Rent Stabilization.” Calistoga, Cal.,
Municipal Code ch. 2.22 (2007) (“Ordinance 644”). The
purpose of the ordinance is to “stabilize mobile home park
space rents” to, among other things, “[p]revent exploitation
of the shortage of vacant mobile home park spaces,”
“[p]revent excessive and unreasonable . . . rent increases,”
and “[r]ectify the disparity of bargaining power” between
park owners and mobile home owners. Id. § 2.22.010.D.
The City based the ordinance in part on the findings that:
(1) “[r]esidents of mobile home parks, unlike apartment
tenants or residents of other rental properties, are in a unique
position in that they have made a substantial investment in a
residence for which space is rented or leased”; (2) “relocation
of a mobile home from a park space is generally
accomplished at substantial cost” and comes with risk of
damaging the home; and (3) rent increases could “cause a
hardship to a substantial number” of mobile home park
residents, “most of whom are elderly, on fixed incomes, or
persons of low income.” Id. § 2.22.010.B. The City also
found it “necessary to protect mobile home homeowners . . .
from unreasonable rent increases and at the same time
recognize the rights of mobile home park owners to maintain

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 6
their property and to receive just and reasonable return on
their investments.” Id. § 2.22.010.B.4.
The ordinance authorizes a yearly rent increase equal to
the lesser of 100% of the percent change in the Consumer
Price Index or 6% of the base rent. Id. § 2.22.070.A. It also
establishes an administrative mechanism for park owners to
seek to increase rent above this amount. Id. § 2.22.080. This
process exists to “insur[e] mobile home park owners a fair,
just, and reasonable rate of return on their parks in cases
where the annual space rent increase provided by [the
ordinance] proves insufficient.” Id. § 2.22.010.D.5.
In September 2010, Rancho asked the City Council to
establish a public subsidy program to provide mobile home
park tenants with a monthly stipend equal to the difference
between the market rate and the rent control rate, regardless
of need. The City Council did not act on the request.
In 2010, Rancho decided to notice a rent increase from
$471.39 to $625 per month, which an economist retained by
Rancho deemed to be “not excessive but . . . slightly below
market.” An administrative hearing officer, W. Scott
Snowden, conducted evidentiary hearings. In July 2011,
Snowden issued a decision in which he rejected Rancho’s
request and instead allowed a rent increase to a total of
$537.59 per space per month. Snowden declined to rule on
Rancho’s constitutional claims, noting that “it would be
premature to consider an ‘as-applied’ constitutional challenge
to the ordinance as such an inquiry would be best left to the
courts.”
Following the ruling, Rancho filed a Petition for Writ of
Administrative Mandamus in the Napa County Superior

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 7
Court. That same day, it filed suit in federal court against the
City of Calistoga and Snowden (collectively referred to as
“The City”), asserting claims for, among other things,
violations of the Takings, Due Process, and Equal Protection
Clauses of the United States Constitution. It also filed with
the district court a notice regarding the pendency of the state
petition. The City successfully moved to dismiss. The
district court found that any facial challenge to Ordinance 644
was time barred, that Rancho failed to state claims for private
takings, due process, and equal protection violations, and that
the regulatory takings claim was not ripe. The court granted
Rancho leave to amend its as-applied claims.
Rancho then filed a First Amended Petition that included
the same due process and equal protection claims and a
revised private takings claim. Rancho did not challenge the
court’s conclusions with respect to the facial challenges or
regulatory taking claim, but reserved “any right it may have
to seek reconsideration and/or appellate review of any” of the
court’s rulings. The district court granted a second motion to
dismiss and entered judgment for the City. The court again
found that Rancho failed to state a private takings claim, and
that the due process and equal protection claims were
“subsumed by the purported takings claim.”
In the related state litigation, the California Court of
Appeal affirmed the trial court’s denial of Rancho’s petition
in July 2015. Rancho de Calistoga v. City of Calistoga, No.
A138301, 2015 WL 4099027 (Cal. Ct. App. July 7, 2015).
Rancho then appealed to the California Supreme Court,
where the case remains pending.

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 8
ANALYSIS
I. TAKINGS CLAIM
The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, made
applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment,
Lingle v. Chevron U.S.A. Inc., 544 U.S. 528, 536 (2005),
provides that “private property [shall not] be taken for public
use, without just compensation.” U.S. Const. amend. V.
The law on condemnations and physical takings, which
the Supreme Court has described as “as old as the Republic,”
is governed by the simple rule that “[w]hen the government
physically takes possession of an interest in property for some
public purpose, it has a categorical duty to compensate the
former owner.” Tahoe-Sierra Pres. Council, Inc. v. Tahoe
Reg’l Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302, 322 (2002). Thus, in
physical takings cases, the analysis inevitably focuses on the
public use and just compensation requirements.
In contrast to a physical taking, a regulatory taking occurs
where “government regulation of private property [is] so
onerous that its effect is tantamount to a direct appropriation
or ouster.” Lingle, 544 U.S. at 537. Regulatory takings
claims, such as the one here, are “of more recent vintage.”1
Tahoe-Sierra, 535 U.S. at 322. These claims are
“characterized by essentially ad hoc, factual inquiries,
designed to allow careful examination and weighing of all the
1 The Supreme Court laid to rest any argument that a mobile home rent
control ordinance constitutes a physical taking in Yee v. City of Escondido,
Cal., 503 U.S. 519, 532 (1992) (holding that such a rent control ordinance
“is a regulation of petitioners’ use of their property” and not “an unwanted
physical occupation of [the] property”) (emphasis omitted).

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 9
relevant circumstances” to determine whether a taking has
occurred in the first place. Id. (citations and internal
quotation marks omitted). The factors to be considered in this
type of factual inquiry are laid out in Penn Central
Transportation Company v. City of New York, 438 U.S. 104,
124 (1978). Only after it has been determined that a taking
has occurred do the issues of public use and just
compensation become relevant. We therefore begin our
analysis with this first step—whether a regulatory taking has
occurred—and conclude that it has not.
A. Regulatory Takings Analysis
At the outset, we consider whether Rancho’s claims are
ripe. The Supreme Court has articulated “two independent
prudential hurdles” that apply to federal regulatory takings
claims. Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 520 U.S.
725, 733–34 (1997). First, there is a finality requirement—a
claim “is not ripe until the government entity charged with
implementing the regulations has reached a final decision
regarding the application of the regulations to the property at
issue.” Williamson Cnty. Reg’l Planning Comm’n v.
Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172, 186 (1985).
The hearing examiner’s decision satisfies the requisite
finality.
Exhaustion is the second requirement—“the owner [must
have] unsuccessfully attempted to obtain just compensation
through the procedures provided by the State for obtaining
such compensation.” Id. at 195. Rancho appropriately
proceeded in state court to obtain just compensation, but lost

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 10
at both the trial and intermediate appellate stages.2 The
California Court of Appeal’s opinion includes extensive
analysis, including a rejection of the takings claim under the
Penn Central factors: “We reject Rancho’s claim under the
takings clause, which, like the due process clause, protects a
property owner’s right to earn a fair return on its investment.”
Rancho de Calistoga, 2015 WL 4099027, at *5. Rancho’s
petition to the California Supreme Court remains pending.
Echoing the Court’s decision in Suitum, we previously
determined that the Williamson ripeness requirements are
prudential rather than jurisdictional, meaning that they are
formulated by the court rather than stemming from Article
III. See Guggenheim v. City of Goleta, 638 F.3d 1111, 1117
(9th Cir. 2010) (en banc). Here, Rancho sufficiently
“utilized” the available judicial procedures laid out in
Williamson. 473 U.S. at 197. As a consequence, “it would be
a waste of the parties’ and the courts’ resources to bounce the
case through more rounds of litigation.” Guggenheim,
638 F.3d at 1117.
We now turn to the merits of the as-applied regulatory
takings claim. In essence, Rancho claims that even if the
taking is for a public purpose, the rent subsidy should be paid
by the government if the rent is neither excessive nor the
result of monopoly power. This characterization of the
claim—taken directly from Rancho’s brief—is just another
formulation of a facial attack on the ordinance. In other
words, Rancho is saying that the rent adjustment scheme is
invalid on its face if it does not accommodate these
2 We note that this court has determined that California’s compensation
procedures are constitutionally adequate. Equity Lifestyle Props., Inc. v.
Cnty. of San Luis Obispo, 548 F.3d 1184, 1192 (9th Cir. 2008).

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 11
principles. Of course, the district court foreclosed a facial
challenge as time barred.
Even if the claim were cognizable through an as-applied
attack, it fails. The Supreme Court “has consistently affirmed
that States have broad power to regulate housing conditions
in general and the landlord-tenant relationship in particular
without paying compensation for all economic injuries that
such regulation entails.” Yee v. City of Escondido, 503 U.S.
519, 528–29 (1992) (internal quotation mark omitted).
“However, under Penn Central . . . a regulatory taking may
occur—and just compensation is required—when ‘regulatory
actions [occur] that are functionally equivalent to the classic
taking in which government directly appropriates private
property or ousts the owner’ with the inquiry ‘focus[ing]
directly upon the severity of the burden that government
imposes upon private property rights.’” MHC, 714 F.3d at
1127 (quoting Lingle, 544 U.S. at 539) (alteration in original).
Penn Central “identif[ies] several factors, not a set
formula,” to determine whether this functional equivalence
exists. Guggenheim, 638 F.3d at 1120. Chief among the
factors to be considered are “[t]he economic impact of the
regulation on the claimant and, particularly, the extent to
which the regulation has interfered with distinct investment-
backed expectations” and “the character of the governmental
action—for instance whether it amounts to a physical
invasion or instead merely affects property interests through
some public program adjusting the benefits and burdens of
economic life to promote the common good.” Lingle, 544
U.S. at 538-39 (citing Penn Cent., 438 U.S. at 124) (internal
quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original). Applied
here, these factors counsel in favor of the City.

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The economic impact factor favors the City because
Supreme Court cases “have long established that mere
diminution in the value of property, however serious, is
insufficient to demonstrate a taking.” Concrete Pipe &
Products of California, Inc. v. Constr. Laborers Pension
Trust for S. California, 508 U.S. 602, 645 (1993) (citing
Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 384
(1926) (approximately 75% diminution in value); Hadacheck
v. Sebastian, 239 U.S. 394, 405 (1915) (92.5% diminution));
see also MHC, 714 F.3d at 1127-28 (81% diminution).
Rancho claims diminution in market value (from $16,580,000
to $11,850,000 under rent control, or 28.53%), as well as lost
income. This economic impact is an inevitable consequence
of the rent-control scheme but not an unconstitutional one.
We pay particular attention to Rancho’s distinct
investment-backed expectations. This principle “implies
reasonable probability, like expecting rent to be paid, not
starry eyed hope of winning the jackpot.” Guggenheim,
638 F.3d at 1120. Because Rancho cannot reasonably expect
that its property will be continually unencumbered by
government regulation, this factor also favors the City.
Rancho argues that because, unlike in Guggenheim,
638 F.3d at 1120-21, and MHC, 714 F.3d at 1128, it has
owned the Park since before the City imposed a rent control
ordinance, it had an investment-backed expectation to be free
from rent control. This temporal difference does not give
Rancho a valid investment-backed expectation of owning a
mobile home park unencumbered by government regulation.
Simply put, when buying a piece of property, one cannot
reasonably expect that property to be free of government
regulation such as zoning, tax assessments, or, as here, rent
control. Rancho’s argument is tantamount to saying that a

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 13
homeowner can reasonably expect that the tax assessment or
rate of taxation on her home will not increase from the time
of purchase. Just as “[t]hose who do business in [a] regulated
field cannot object if the legislative scheme is buttressed by
subsequent amendments to achieve the legislative end,” those
who buy into a regulated field such as the mobile home park
industry cannot object when regulation is later imposed.
Concrete Pipe, 508 U.S. at 645 (alteration in original). Like
the California Court of Appeal, “[w]e decline to hold that a
landlord whose building or park existed before the enactment
of rent control necessarily suffers a taking when rent control
is implemented.” Rancho de Calistoga, 2015 WL 4099027,
at *5.
Rancho’s argument that it has an investment-backed
expectation to earn a “fair return” fares no better. In fact, this
argument proves the City’s point. Ordinance 644 authorizes
a specified yearly rent increase and establishes an
administrative mechanism for park owners to seek to increase
rent above this amount. Ordinance 644 §§ 2.22.070.A,
2.22.080. Under the ordinance, “[a] park owner may seek an
adjustment to the initial base rent” so that the owner is
assured of “receiving a fair and reasonable return.” Id.
§ 2.22.040.B. Rancho did just that and obtained a $50
upward adjustment in 1995. Rancho de Calistoga, 2015 WL
4099027, at *5. Then, the Ordinance provides for automatic
annual increases that Rancho in fact received. Id. § 2.22.070.
And, finally, the ordinance permits the owner to propose an
additional rent increase, as Rancho did here. Id. § 2.22.080.
We assume for purposes of Rancho’s argument that its
proposed rent increase is neither excessive (in some
undefined sense) nor monopolistic. Significantly, as the
California Court of Appeal observed, “Rancho’s true quarrel

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 14
appears to be with the whole idea of rent control, not with
how [the] City administered its duly enacted rent control
ordinance in this case.” Rancho de Calistoga, 2015 WL
4099027, at *5.
The City has designed a system aimed at giving park
owners a fair return while still furthering the goals of rent
control. Rancho may disagree with the specific rent prices
authorized by the ordinance, but this disagreement does not
give rise to a constitutional taking nor is a mobile home park
owner entitled to unilaterally impose its own formulation of
“excessive” or “monopolistic” as the standard necessary for
a taking.
We last address the character of the governmental action.
We have consistently given our imprimatur to the underlying
public purpose of mobile home rent control ordinances and
have characterized them as “much more an ‘adjust[ment of]
the benefits and burdens of economic life to promote the
common good’ than . . . a physical invasion of property.”
MHC, 714 F.3d at 1128 (quoting Penn Cent., 438 U.S. at 124)
(alteration in original). The same holds true of Ordinance
644 and its application to Rancho. Accordingly, there has
been no regulatory taking.
B. Self-Styled “Private Takings Claim”
Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall with respect to its
regulatory takings claim, Rancho devotes the majority of its
briefing to what it presents as a separate “private takings
claim,” arguing that the application of Ordinance 644 to rent
increases constitutes an unconstitutional private taking
because any purported “public use” is pretextual. Two years
ago, in MHC, we noted that we were “aware of no court that

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 15
has ever recognized a regulatory private taking,” but because
we concluded that the claim failed on the merits, we
“assume[d] without deciding that such a claim is possible.”
714 F.3d at 1129 n.5. Today we pick up where MHC left off,
holding that under the circumstances here, Rancho’s so-
called “private takings claim” cannot serve as an independent
means to challenge an alleged regulatory taking. Rather, such
a public-use challenge must function as part of the larger
regulatory takings claim. As explained below, viewed in this
context, Rancho’s claim fails for multiple reasons.
Putting the “private as-applied takings” moniker on
Rancho’s claim is both confusing and misleading. A short
history of the terminology is in order. True private
takings—those effected by non-governmental actors—such
as the power granted to the railroads to take private lands to
expand the rails “have a long and distinguished pedigree in
our legal system.” Abraham Bell, Private Takings, 76 U.
CHI. L. REV. 517, 585 (2009). Another variation, as Bell
notes, is the “government-mediated private taking[]” in which
the government “simply acts as a middleman who transfers
the property from one set of private hands to another.” Id. at
520. And finally, when used as the basis of a takings claim
such as Rancho’s, “the term ‘private takings’ more narrowly
refer[s] to public takings motivated by a ‘private purpose.’”
Id. at 519 n.6.
This third approach, as Rancho is attempting to use it
here, is simply a renaming of the regulatory takings claim,
which seeks to determine whether a property regulation is
“functionally equivalent to the classic taking in which
government directly appropriates private property or ousts the
owner from his domain.” Lingle, 544 U.S. at 539. Of course,

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 16
the Constitution requires that the government’s taking must
be for a public use.
Tellingly, in making its private takings argument, Rancho
relies predominantly on condemnation cases, running afoul of
the Supreme Court’s teaching that the “longstanding
distinction between acquisitions of property for public use, on
the one hand, and regulations prohibiting private uses, on the
other, makes it inappropriate to treat cases involving physical
takings as controlling precedents for the evaluation of a claim
that there has been a ‘regulatory taking,’ and vice versa.”
Tahoe-Sierra, 535 U.S. at 323 (footnote omitted).
Accordingly, as a general matter, “we do not apply our
precedent from the physical takings context to regulatory
takings claims.” Id. at 323–24.
Yet Rancho’s private takings argument is rooted in the
Supreme Court’s statement in the condemnation case Kelo
that the state may not “take property under the mere pretext
of a public purpose, when its actual purpose [is] to bestow a
private benefit.” Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469,
478 (2005). The crux of Rancho’s argument is that because
none of the purposes enumerated in Ordinance 644 apply
here, its application is pretextual. According to Rancho, the
real purpose behind the application of Ordinance 644 here is
to “provide each and every one of the 184 tenants with a
significant monthly subsidy, whether they need it or not.”
This “subsidy,” Rancho argues, violates the principle “that
the sovereign may not take the property of A for the sole
purpose of transferring it to another private party B.” Kelo,
545 U.S. at 477. This argument fails because it is simply a
reframing of a facial challenge to the ordinance through an
attack on the stated purposes of the rent-control scheme.
Other related arguments fail for the same reason. As noted

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 17
before, the district court dismissed the facial challenge as
time barred and Rancho did not appeal this issue. Rancho
cannot resuscitate this claim by re-labeling it and claiming to
challenge “the real purpose” of the ordinance through an “as-
applied” attack on the validity of the ordinance.
Rancho offers up a number of additional arguments. To
the extent those arguments seek to challenge the public
purpose of the ordinance as applied, they merge the cart and
the horse. Because we determined that there has been no
taking in the first place, it is unnecessary to address whether
the public use requirement is met.
Rancho raises two final, though unrelated, points. In
2010 Rancho proposed legislation to the City Council
requiring the City to provide rent subsidies to mobile home
park tenants “without regard to need, equal to the difference
between the rent control rate and the fair market rate.” The
rent control administrator apparently said the proposal was
“unreasonable.” This statement, however, proves nothing.
As Rancho acknowledges, it had no right to have the proposal
adopted; indeed, no claim is made that the Council acted
improperly. Rancho’s theory that the reaction of the
administrator is evidence of “as-applied” pretext is pure
speculation and is not tethered to the City’s enforcement of
the actual ordinance.
Finally, Rancho claims that the rent subsidy violates the
California Constitution’s prohibition against gifts of public
funds, while at the same time admitting that the City has not
made an illegal gift. Cal. Const. art. XVI, § 6 (“The
Legislature shall have no power . . . to make any gift or
authorize the making of any gift, of any public money or
thing of value to any individual . . . .”). This concession is

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not surprising as the City has not made a transfer or gift of
any “public money” to any mobile home park tenant, nor can
it be said that the ordinance amounts to an indirect gift as
urged by Rancho.
In sum, Rancho’s self-styled “private takings claim”
cannot serve as a means to evade Penn Central scrutiny. And
in any event, as articulated here, such claim fails because it is
a thinly veiled facial challenge, which is both time barred and
lacks merit.
II. DUE PROCESS AND EQUAL PROTECTION CLAIMS
Rancho’s due process and equal protection claims rest on
the same grounds—that Snowden’s rejection of its
application was arbitrary.
Here, Rancho’s theory of its due process claim—that “it
is not possible to exploit a tenant unless and until the rent is
above market”—relates to conduct squarely covered by the
Takings Clause. Such an overlapping theory dooms the
substantive due process claim. See Colony Cove Properties,
LLC v. City Of Carson, 640 F.3d 948, 960 (9th Cir. 2011)
(holding that a due process claim was “subsumed by the
Takings Clause” where a plaintiff sought a rental rate
increase that would give it a fair return on its investment).
Although Lingle left open the possibility of an independent
claim where “a [property] regulation that fails to serve any
legitimate governmental objective may be so arbitrary or
irrational that it runs afoul of the Due Process Clause,”
544 U.S. at 542, we later clarified that “the Fifth Amendment
. . . preclude[s] a due process challenge . . . if the alleged
conduct is actually covered by the Takings Clause.” Crown
Point Dev., Inc. v. City of Sun Valley, 506 F.3d 851, 855 (9th

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RANCHO DE CALISTOGA V. CITY OF CALISTOGA 19
Cir. 2007). Here, the alleged conduct is covered by the
Takings Clause.
We evaluate Rancho’s “equal protection challenge . . .
under rational basis review because mobile [] home park
owners are not a suspect class.” Equity Lifestyle Properties,
Inc. v. Cnty. of San Luis Obispo, 548 F.3d 1184, 1195 (9th
Cir. 2008). Accordingly, “[u]nder rational-basis review,
where a group possesses distinguishing characteristics
relevant to interests the State has the authority to implement,
a State’s decision to act on the basis of those differences does
not give rise to a constitutional violation.” Id.
Here, as in Equity Lifestyle, the ordinance articulates just
such distinguishing characteristics, including the potential
hardship posed by rent increases and the fact that mobile
home park residents “are in a unique position in that they
have made a substantial investment in a residence for which
space is rented or leased” and the associated relocation costs.
See Ordinance 644 § 2.22.010.B; Guggenheim, 638 F.3d at
1123 (noting that this court is “bound by precedent
establishing that such laws do have a rational basis”).
Rancho offers no legitimate claim that Snowden’s decision
was politically motivated or otherwise arbitrary. We
therefore affirm the district court’s dismissal of Rancho’s due
process and equal protection claims.
CONCLUSION
We affirm the district court’s dismissal of Rancho’s
claims, albeit on slightly different grounds.
AFFIRMED.

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