C.A. 1st;
A138702

The First Appellate District affirmed a judgment. The court held that property owners' failure to obtain a myriad of permits required to connect their property through a state-owned sewer line to a sewer system serviced by a different town barred their claim that their local county's revocation of construction permits violated their vested rights.

Paul and Tamara Attard owned rural properties in Contra Costa County that they wanted to develop for residential use. The properties were too remote, however, to be served by a municipal sewage system, and the Attards' efforts to obtain county approval of two different means for either a septic system or a holding tank system were unavailing. The Attards came up with a creative solution. In 2005, they entered into an agreement with the state Department of Transportation (CalTrans) to reconstruct and upgrade the Caldecott Tunnel's sewage disposal system in return for the right to connect their properties to the rebuilt system. They agreed not only to pay all construction costs, but also to pay for upkeep of the new system. Under the agreement, they were responsible for obtaining the permits necessary to carry out the plan from the county or from the City of Oakland, which provided the sewage service for the existing Caldecott Tunnel restroom; they were also responsible for obtaining encroachment permits from the state. The work was completed in 2007, at a cost of $800,000. The Attards were not so diligent, however, in obtaining the necessary permits. They obtained a permit from CalTrans only after the work was completed. They never obtained a permit from Oakland allowing them to use the Oakland sewer system, or from the county allowing the construction of sewer lines on their properties. Further, neither the Attards nor Oakland obtained the consent of the county Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) to Oakland's provision of sewage treatment service to parcels located outside its jurisdictional boundary, as required by state law. Upon discovering these omissions, Contra Costa County, which had issued construction permits for one of the properties, withdrew the permits and ordered the Attards to suspend construction work. When their appeal to the county board of supervisors was denied, the Attards filed a petition for writ of mandate challenging the board's decision..