For Immediate Release
March 17, 2021
Contact: Isabel Alegria, Public Advocates, ialegria@publicadvocates.org, 510- 541-5428
Sam Tepperman-Gelfant and Richard Marcantonio Win CLAY Award for San José Surplus Land Act Victory
San Francisco — Public Advocates is proud to announce that two of our managing attorneys, Sam Tepperman-Gelfant and Richard Marcantonio, have received the 2021 California Lawyer Attorneys of the Year Award (CLAY) from the Daily Journal for their work representing the plaintiffs in Anderson v. City of San José— a case with far-reaching implications for the development of affordable housing throughout California. The CLAY Awards recognize attorneys throughout California whose work made a significant impact.
“We congratulate Sam Tepperman-Gelfant and Richard Marcantonio for their steadfast dedication to the plaintiffs in this case and the millions of low-income Californians who need an affordable place to live,” said Public Advocates President and CEO Guillermo Mayer. “Sam and Richard’s outstanding strategic acumen and hard work over four years of litigation shows their extraordinary commitment to housing justice,” said Mayer.
This case ensures that all “Charter Cities” in California must follow the state Surplus Land Act, an important affordable housing law (Anderson v. City of San José, (2019) 42 Cal. App. 5th 683). The Act requires cities and counties to prioritize affordable housing whenever they dispose of unneeded surplus land.
The case originated in 2016 after the City of San José—one of the most expensive housing markets in the country—claimed its status as a Charter City allowed it to ignore the Surplus Land Act. The City instead adopted a local public land policy that would have prioritized office development over housing on many sites, favored development of housing affordable to people with higher incomes than required by state law, and given staff wide discretion to rewrite the rules for any particular parcel of public land.
San José residents Sarah Anderson and Joana Cruz and two nonprofit organizations, Urban Habitat and Housing California, brought suit in 2016 to enforce the Surplus Land Act and to increase the availability of homes for people at the lowest income levels.
“This litigation affirmed that ‘public land for public good’ isn’t just a slogan, it’s the law of the land in California,” said Sam Tepperman-Gelfant, one of the CLAY Award recipients, “Every city can and must prioritize its surplus land for homes affordable to lower-income families.”
Nearly half of Californians live in the state’s 121 charter cities, so San José’s theory that it was exempt from the law would have gutted the Surplus Land Act statewide. Moreover, the City’s assertion that the shortage of affordable housing was not a matter of statewide concern could have undermined numerous other state laws designed to increase the supply of affordable housing—severely limiting the state’s ability to address the affordable housing crisis at a time when the California Supreme Court observed the problem was of “epic proportions.” Cal. Bldg. Indus. Ass’n v. San José, (2015) 61 Cal.4th 435, 441.
“Surplus public land is a critical resource for ending homelessness,” said Richard Marcantonio, one of the CLAY Award recipients. “This case serves as a reminder to cities all over California that the Surplus Land Act is a very valuable tool they possess to overcome the housing affordability crisis.”
The plaintiffs were represented by Bay Area Legal Aid, The Public Interest Law Project, and Weil, Gotshal & Manges, in addition to Public Advocates. Former Public Advocates attorney David Zisser also worked on the case before his departure in 2018.
Sam and Richard share this award with outstanding co-counsel, Rebekah Evenson, Cristina Vazquez, Valerie Feldman, and Michael Rawson.
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