## Facts

- Petaluma, a California charter city north of San Francisco, experienced rapid population growth from 1970 to 1972 and accelerating residential construction through 1971.
- In response to increased development pressure and eastward sprawl, the city temporarily froze development to study growth impacts.
- Petaluma then adopted a five-year housing and zoning plan to manage growth, including:
  - a cap of 500 new housing units per year for projects of five or more units,
  - an “urban extension line” limiting annexation and extension of municipal services beyond a designated boundary for a set period,
  - allocation rules addressing the geographic distribution of growth and the mix of single-family and multi-family units.
- The plan also required that 8–12% of newly approved units be designated for low- and moderate-income residents.
- A construction industry association and two landowners challenged the plan, alleging violations of the constitutional right to travel, substantive due process, and the Commerce Clause.
- The district court found the plan’s purpose and effect to be exclusionary and enjoined its implementation on the theory that it violated the right to travel of persons allegedly prevented from moving into Petaluma.

## Issues

1. Whether builders and landowners have standing to assert a right-to-travel claim on behalf of unidentified prospective residents allegedly excluded by the housing cap.
2. Whether the growth-control plan violates substantive due process as an arbitrary or exclusionary land-use regulation lacking a rational relationship to legitimate governmental objectives.
3. Whether the plan imposes an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce by restricting housing production and affecting regional labor and housing markets.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court and upheld the plan.
- The plaintiffs lacked standing to assert the right-to-travel claim because they sought to vindicate the rights of third parties (prospective migrants) rather than their own impaired mobility.
- The plan survived substantive due process review because it was rationally related to legitimate municipal objectives, including preserving open space, limiting sprawl, maintaining community character, and advancing orderly growth.
- The plan did not violate the Commerce Clause because it applied evenhandedly, did not discriminate against interstate commerce, and any incidental burdens were not clearly excessive relative to local benefits.
- The court noted that regional housing impacts from widespread local growth caps, if problematic, were primarily for state legislative resolution rather than federal judicial intervention.

## Legal Principles

- Prudential standing generally bars developers and landowners from asserting a constitutional right-to-travel claim on behalf of unidentified third parties allegedly deterred from relocating.
- Under rational-basis substantive due process review, municipal land-use controls are constitutional if reasonably related to legitimate public welfare objectives, including environmental, aesthetic, and growth-management goals.
- A growth-control ordinance is not unconstitutional solely because it has exclusionary effects; the federal due process inquiry focuses on arbitrariness and rational relation to legitimate ends.
- Evenhanded local regulations with incidental effects on interstate commerce are valid absent discrimination or burdens clearly excessive in relation to the asserted local benefits.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit sustained Petaluma’s five-year growth-control program, holding that the plaintiffs could not litigate right-to-travel claims for prospective residents and that the housing cap and related measures were a rational exercise of municipal police power that did not impose an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce.


Construction Indus. Ass’n of Sonoma Cnty. v. City of Petaluma, 522 F.2d 897 (9th Cir. 1975)