California is suing Huntington Beach for limiting housing developments

California is suing Huntington Beach, accusing the city of knowingly violating state housing laws.

In a clear warning to other cities, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, along with other state officials, lambasted Huntington Beach’s recent housing decisions. Just a day before, Huntington Beach councilmembers voted to extend the city’s moratorium on accepting new applications for accessory dwelling units and to ignore the “builder’s remedy” homebuilding process, which allows developers to sidestep zoning restrictions in cities without state-approved housing plans. The ban on builder’s remedy in town will take a second vote later this month to go into effect.

California is suing Huntington Beach over its ban on new ADU applications, but officials warned more action could occur should the City Council continue with its plan to oppose the builder’s remedy process.

Starting in 2017, state laws lifted barriers to building secondary units on a single lot. Housing advocates and state officials argue ADUs will help meet housing goals, offering living space for multiple generations of family or much needed rentals by making use of larger lots that were traditional in many communities.

“Huntington Beach has decided to slam the door in homeowners’ faces,” Bonta said. “No one gets to pick and choose the laws they want to follow.”

“The laws are clear as is Huntington Beach’s willful, intentional refusal to follow them. That’s why we’re in court,” Bonta said.

As housing goals were handed out to cities throughout California for the number of homes — including mandates at various levels of affordability — they have to plan for over the next decade, the pushback was quick and loud. But most also got to work identifying in their required local planning where developers could build what the state figured is needed to meet housing needs.

As of Feb. 9, there were 245 California cities, including 117 in Southern California that hadn’t gotten their planning signed off by the state. That opens them up to the builder’s remedy process, where developers can propose housing projects with cities having less say in what’s planned.

State officials said Thursday they sent Huntington Beach councilmembers letters warning of the ramifications of their housing decisions prior to the lawsuit. The city has argued that as a charter city, Huntington Beach has greater autonomy and, therefore, isn’t subject to state housing laws.

“At the end of the day, the state’s vision as it relates to housing cannot be realized anywhere else except locally,” Newsom said.

Huntington Beach, Newsom said, is not serving its community well with these housing policies and will “waste time, energy and taxpayer dollars.”

Councilmember Pat Burns said Tuesday night in supporting an extension of the city’s ban on further ADU applications that the relaxed state provisions on their construction harms the qualify of life in single-family neighborhoods.

It is all “part of the resistance to the state overreach that is trying to ruin this city with overbuilding in single-family, residential neighborhoods,” he said. “Sacramento thinks they can tell us how to zone our properties. And we need to resist it in any way we can.”

Newsom pushed back on accusations that Huntington Beach is being singled out by the state, saying: “They are Exhibit A because they choose to be.”

City attorney Michael Gates said Huntington Beach would file a new lawsuit this week challenging the state-mandated goal of planning for the construction of 13,368 new homes by 2030. City officials are expected to announce the lawsuit at a 1 p.m. press conference on Thursday.

When asked about the possibility about such a lawsuit, Bonta said: “Should they bring a challenge or join an existing challenge to SB 9 or even ADU law, we’re completely prepared, ready, willing and able to defend the state of California’s laws.”

Senate Bill 9 is a state law allowing duplexes and lot splits in single-family neighborhoods.

“If Huntington Beach’s City Council majority wants to change the law, they are welcome to reach out to their state legislators, but to date my office and I have not heard from them on this issue, making clear that this is political theater of the worst kind, and a huge waste of Huntington Beach taxpayer dollars to boot,” Sen. Dave Min, a Democrat who represents Huntington Beach, said in a statement.

California has sued Huntington Beach over housing plans before. A 2019 lawsuit ended with Huntington Beach settling out of court, a point state officials harped on when announcing the new legal battle.

“They tested us in 2019,” Newsom said, “they’re testing us again.”

Staff Writer Jeff Collins contributed to this report.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.