Court to decide parcel dispute

Did Colusa County block the creation of more than three dozen rural lots to protect agriculture — or did it violate the landowner's rights?

That question has driven a 17-month battle between Daniel Claxton and county officials over dividing hundreds of acres of almond-growing lands into more than three dozen lots.

Now, a federal court may step in.

Fighting county supervisors' rejection in January of his plan, Claxton is seeking to overturn the decision and force county planners to reconsider his plan.

"The county is required to treat everyone equally in their planning laws," Claxton's attorney, Kara K. Ueda, said last week. "We don't think the county did that during this process."

Claxton, a Rancho Santa Fe resident, filed suit last month against the county, supervisors and the Planning and Building Department seeking unspecified damages and court costs.

Last week, Colusa County Superior Court moved the case to U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Ueda said.

Claxton's application in January 2007 sought county permission to divide 421 family-owned acres into 38-acre parcels, all but two of them 10 acres each. The lands abut County Line Road west of Interstate 5, just north of Yolo County.

But the Planning Commission turned down his request in September, and supervisors upheld the decision Jan. 22.

Despite Claxton's promises to continue farming the land, Planning and Building Director Stephen M. Hackney, and some nearby landowners, warned the 10-acre sites were too small to profitably support agriculture and inevitably would be turned into residential lots, shrinking the county's available farmland.

Hackney also pointed to strict California rules on dividing land into more than four parcels, which require the owner to present a temporary land map and then a permanent one within three years.

In his suit, Claxton charged that Colusa County violated his civil rights by stalling the approval process, mainly by wrongly branding his application as incomplete.

He said planning officials have signed off on similar proposals.

"I still haven't got an answer to my question: Why can't I have the same minimum parcel (size) as my neighbors?" Claxton said in January. "I don't see how my application is inconsistent with that. I just want the same treatment as my neighbors."