News - Local

Published: Thursday, Jun. 25, 2009

Homeless outrank county codes, De Vaul and Sunny Acres residents argue in lawsuit

Rancher and tenants sue the county, saying it is violating state, federal and local laws

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Rancher Dan De Vaul is challenging the very foundation of enforcing laws that dispossess the homeless, even if the dwellings they occupy are considered unsafe.

De Vaul and several of the homeless living on his property have sued the county, alleging that its efforts to bring his ranch into compliance with county codes violate federal, state and local laws.

The county’s order to remove illegal mobile homes, garden sheds and recreational vehicles where homeless people have been staying is “an abatement of people, not junk,” attorney Cynthia Hawley wrote in an e-mail to The Tribune. She is representing De Vaul in his suit. “A roof over the head of every person in this country is, by law, more important than enforcing nonessential permitting procedures,” she wrote.

In his lawsuit, De Vaul seeks to halt abatement procedures now scheduled for July 22, and he asks for unspecified damages. He also asks that the county waive conditional-use permits and fees for additional housing.

De Vaul’s 72-acre ranch at 10340 Los Osos Valley Road, just west of the San Luis Obispo city limits, has been a focus of controversy for years. He has a clean-and-sober-living facility called Sunny Acres on the property. But he also raises cattle and grows crops on the land, which is zoned for agriculture. He has amassed dozens of vehicles, some of which he uses for agriculture. But many of them he simply collects or leaves on the land, along with old farm vehicles.

Neighbors on Diablo Drive have complained for years that De Vaul’s cluttered ranch destroys their bucolic views. They also have said paroled sex offenders have lived at Sunny Acres, and complain that he has taunted the neighbors by such acts as placing a dead cow within their view.

Over the years, De Vaul has opened his ranch to the county’s growing homeless population, who have slept wherever they could on the property.

He has said many times that their alternative is to sleep in the bushes “down by the creek,” and has charged the county with not doing enough to find lodging for its homeless people.

The county has countered that it has given De Vaul numerous chances to bring his property up to code. Code enforcement officers and the Board of Supervisors have grown increasingly annoyed over what they view as his intransigence.

They have also defended their actions against De Vaul by saying they are trying to protect the safety of the people they are evicting. The makeshift dwellings could catch fire, for example, officials have said.

De Vaul’s temporary dwellings are mostly illegal under county codes. They include mobile homes, recreational vehicles, tents, and the so-called “stucco barn” that De Vaul said he was building for agriculture but used instead to house the homeless.

The county has boarded up the barn, sheds, mobile homes and trailers. It also is systematically removing old vehicles. Hawley writes that the federal Fair Housing Act “requires local governments to relax ordinances and policies to make sure that every person has the opportunity to have a dwelling.”

She added that under state law and the county’s housing element, the county is required to “remove government constraints” to maintaining existing housing for the homeless and people with disabilities. She said the county displaced 36 people when it shuttered the stucco barn.

“Federal, state and local laws require the county to bend over backwards … to provide homes for otherwise homeless people,” Hawley wrote.