Ongoing Public Use Does Not Bar Surplus Land Designation

The First District Court of Appeal held that the City of Santa Rosa did not abuse its discretion under the Surplus Land Act when it declared a city-owned downtown parking garage to be surplus land, even though the property continued to serve a public parking function and the City conditioned its disposition on retention of some parking spaces. Airport Business Center v. City of Santa Rosa, 2025 WL 3295545 (1st Dist, Nov. 26, 2025).

The City adopted a resolution designating a 199-space public parking garage as nonexempt surplus land. The resolution required that any future development retain at least 75 public parking spaces on the site.

A neighboring property sought a writ of mandate contending that the City violated the Surplus Land Act because the garage remained necessary for public parking and therefore could not be deemed surplus land. 

The appellate court rejected the premise that land currently used for a public purpose cannot qualify as surplus land. It held that the statutory requirement that land be “not necessary for the agency’s use” focuses on whether the property is essential to the agency’s own operations, not whether it serves some public benefit. An ongoing general need for public parking did not preclude the City from determining that a specific parking facility was unnecessary, particularly where it had determined that other facilities could accommodate demand.

Applying the deferential standard governing traditional mandamus, the court concluded that substantial evidence supported the City’s determination, including extensive parking utilization studies, evidence of substantial unused parking capacity elsewhere downtown, and the high cost of needed structural repairs reflected in the administrative record. The court also held that the City satisfied the Act’s requirement for written findings and that conditioning disposition on retention of some parking did not undermine the surplus designation.