California sues Huntington Beach over failure to follow housing laws in warning to other cities

In a warning signal to California cities failing to comply with recently beefed-up housing legislation, the state on Thursday announced it’s suing Huntington Beach for “thumbing their nose” at laws intended to help solve the state’s housing shortage.

The lawsuit challenges the seaside Southern California city’s attempt to circumvent Senate Bill 9 — a newly enacted law that allows up to four units on lots in neighborhoods zoned for single-family homes.

“Huntington Beach City Council has chosen to stifle affordable housing projects, infringe on the rights of property owners and knowingly violate state housing law,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said during a virtual news conference that included Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The council on Feb. 21 banned the city from processing SB 9 development applications, as well as accessory dwelling units — small backyard or garage units also known as ADUs. The state is asking the court for a preliminary injunction that would immediately force the city to roll back that action while the litigation progresses.

Huntington Beach officials quickly fired back by filing their own lawsuit against the state, claiming Sacramento’s efforts to thwart city zoning rules and force cities to build more housing are unconstitutional.

“We know neither the state nor Gavin Newsom are serious about actually producing more housing. Their goal is just to urbanize quiet private property owning communities,” Huntington Beach Mayor Tony Strickland said during his own news conference. “This lawsuit filed by our city attorney today is the first major step in taking the governor and the state to task over their faulty narratives about housing and their unconstitutional legislative and administrative means of stripping charter cities of their ability to make their own decisions.”

It’s the latest example of tension between Sacramento and city governments as the state attempts to build its way out of a housing shortage that has driven prices sky-high, priced people out of their hometowns and exacerbated a mounting homelessness crisis.

State officials anticipate California needs 2.5 million more homes by 2030, and legislators have passed nearly 100 laws in recent years aimed at developing more housing. Enforcement of those laws also has ramped up. In 2021, Newsom created a new Housing Accountability Unit tasked with helping cities get into compliance with state housing laws — and cracking down on those who refuse.

State officials have come after other cities, including some in the Bay Area. In 2019, the California Department of Housing and Community Development threatened to sue Cupertino, warning that if a massive housing project planned at the defunct Vallco Mall site didn’t progress, the city would be out of compliance with its state-mandated development goals. The attorney general called out Woodside earlier this year after the wealthy Peninsula town tried to exempt itself from SB 9 by claiming the town is a mountain lion habitat. Last year, the state launched a first-of-its-kind review of San Francisco’s permitting process, after the city reported the longest timelines in the state for approving housing projects. And Newsom last year threatened to take back millions of dollars in state funding after he claimed Oakland shirked its responsibility to clear a large West Oakland homeless encampment.

But in each of those cases, the city worked with the state to solve the issue. Huntington Beach, which also was warned, is an outlier, Bonta said. Newsom called Huntington Beach “Exhibit A” in what’s wrong with housing in the state of California.

“They’re thumbing their nose. I guess for attention,” said Newsom, who is recovering from COVID and joined the news conference virtually. “But it’s coming at the cost of the community and those they claim to serve.”

This isn’t the first time Huntington Beach has faced off against the state in court. The state sued in 2019, accusing the city of failing to allow enough new housing development. That lawsuit was settled and Huntington Beach agreed to plan for 502 new low-income housing units. Huntington Beach, with a population of nearly 200,000, also sued the state seeking to be exempt from recent housing laws, but it lost that lawsuit in 2021.

“This is a waste of money, a waste of time,” Newsom said about the current legal battle. “They will lose again.”