Rancho de Sonoma owner Preston Cook, saying he is out of patience after a year-long wrangle with the City of Sonoma, his own park residents and a state law that sanctions condo conversions, has filed a $28 million lawsuit claiming the city is blocking his statutory right to convert. “I don’t want to sue the city,” he said, “but I refuse to lose any of my rights.”
“We’ve gotten a copy of the lawsuit,” said City Attorney Tom Curry on Aug. 14, “and we’re taking a look at it and we’ll be looking at it with the Council in closed session on Wednesday, Aug. 20.” Curry said the lawsuit, as he reads it, is not about the current about-to-be-adopted ordinance, but “has to do with the claim [Cook’s lawyers] filed some time ago which challenged the adoption of the city’s moratorium on approvals of conversions. There is a provision in State law,” said Curry, “that allows a city to adopt as an interim ordinance what, in effect, is a moratorium on approvals of various land use decisions … during the time in which they’re being studied. We adopted the original moratorium almost a year ago, and extended it twice. And they don’t agree with that.”
Cook claims the city has enacted a moratorium to halt the conversion unlawfully. “The state law allows me to convert,” he said, however, when he applied for conversion, the City of Sonoma immediately enacted a moratorium. “That prohibited me from pursuing my rightful conversion to a resident-owned community.” He said because his application for conversion triggered certain deadlines according to state law, he entered into a “tolling agreement” with the city that would allow time for the city to complete its ordinance and for him to agree to its terms. The deadline he was up against was the date beyond which he could not file suit. “I needed to do something by August 6 or I would lose my right to litigate on this matter.”
Curry has said repeatedly in city council meetings that he has been working to create an ordinance that would be “defensible in court.” Councilmember Steve Barbose called for one last draft of the ordinance to clarify a key definition in the ordinance, that of the “bona fide conversion.” Cook has said repeatedly in city council meetings, and again on Thursday, that his conversion is a bona fide conversion. “The park is going to be a better place, and will last into the next several generations,” he said. “The renters will keep the same rent. I’m going to benefit financially also. The city will have a better community. I don’t see any losers here.”
A week before his Aug. 6 deadline Cook received what he described as “a totally unacceptable tolling agreement” from the city “which basically said that I have to live with whatever the ordinance is. And I don’t even know what the ordinance is! So I’m certainly not going to sign that. And I decided to not even try to negotiate. I had no choice.”
Barbose, who had been a member of the ad hoc team dedicated to bringing Cook and park residents to an agreement on the conversion, said he was unable to comment on the lawsuit itself. He would only say, “I’m disappointed.” City Manager Linda Kelly also would not discuss the case, saying, “Our city attorney has stated in open session that he feels our process and moratorium and pending conversion ordinance are as strong as they need to be to be defensible. So whether this sort of lawsuit has any real opportunity to prevail, I can’t opine on that.”
Cook can. He cited an e-mail he’d just received from the Santa Monica law firm, Gilchrist and Rutter, listing a series of victories over cities in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, San Mateo, Riverside and Carson. “In every other city that’s tried to stop a conversion,” Cook said, “the city has lost.” He said the cities are making political decisions and these can’t be upheld in court. As for him, his direction is clear. “I’m going to pursue this, and pursue it and pursue it and hopefully I will win. I will pursue every course of action to get this conversion through.”
