William Allingham, Respondents v. the City of Seattle, Appellant

Summary

The Washington Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's judgment invalidating sections 23.70.40 and 23.70.50 of Seattle's Greenbelt Ordinance as an unconstitutional taking of property without just compensation. The court held that exhaustion of the ordinance's variance procedures would be futile because those remedies were patently inadequate, leaving owners without use of 40 to 50 percent of their lots even if every variance were granted. Applying the two-part test that a zoning ordinance takes property if it does not substantially promote legitimate public interests or deprives the owner of any profitable use of the land, the court concluded the ordinance deprives landowners of all profitable use of the reserved portions of their lots, and that a city may not regulate away all rights of ownership to a portion of property under the guise of zoning. Attorney fees were denied: the private attorney general doctrine remains rejected, and statutory fee recovery was unavailable because the plaintiffs' federal takings claim was unripe where they never sought compensation.