Hillel Aron
(CN) — The California Court of Appeals has upheld a Superior Court judge’s order compelling Huntington Beach to produce a plan to build more housing.
The panel also agreed to a request by the state to add more teeth to the order. Huntington Beach will now have 120 days to draw up its “housing element,” a state-mandated plan to allow more housing to be constructed. The seaside Orange County city will have only limited authority over permitting, zoning and subdivision approvals until the plan is completed.
“Huntington Beach officials have wasted vast sums of taxpayer dollars to defend clearly unlawful NIMBY policies,” said Governor Gavin Newsom in a written statement. “They are failing their own citizens — by wasting time and money that could be used to create much-needed housing. No more excuses — every city must follow state law and do its part to build more housing.”
Since 1969, cities have been required to, every eight years, produce a housing element — an outline for how a city will allow for the construction of more housing at different income levels. In an effort to ease its longtime housing crisis, California has passed a multitude of laws over the years in an attempt to boost home production. Among these, it has strengthened the housing element law and introduced penalties for not producing one.
Huntington Beach — or Surf City, as it is fond of calling itself — was required to produce its revised housing element by October 2021. Its refusal became just one front in a multifaceted legal war with the state that included lawsuits over the city’s voter ID law, trans rights for students and a number of housing-related mandates. Governor Gavin Newsom has called Huntington Beach “Exhibit A of what NIMBYism looks like.”
California sued Huntington Beach in 2023 for deliberately shirking the housing element law. In 2024, a Superior Court judge in San Diego agreed that the city had violated the law, but she declined to set a 120-day deadline for Surf City to remedy the matter. The city appealed the ruling, while the state appealed the lack of a deadline.
On Thursday, a three-judge panel sided with the state on both matters.
“The city of Huntington Beach, a charter city, was required to approve its most recent housing element revision by October 15, 2021,” wrote Fourth Appellate District Justice Judith McConnell. “At present, nearly four years after that deadline, the city has refused to adopt a revised housing element based on its stated concern that a revised housing element would harm the environment because it would force the city to plan for the construction of an excessively high number of affordable housing units.”
Huntington Beach had long argued that, as a charter city, it is exempt from various state laws. The lower court rejected that argument, and the appellate panel did as well.
McConnell added that “the trial court erred by omitting the 120-day compliance deadline” from the order, and that the judge also should have imposed provisional penalties on Huntington Beach — namely, limiting the city’s “authority over permitting, zoning and subdivision approval” until its housing element is approved.
“The provisional remedies are also crucial to cure a city’s violations and effectuate the state’s housing laws,” McConnell wrote. “As one court recently observed, ’local governments are susceptible to ‘not in my backyard’ (or NIMBY) pressure… because local governments would not address the housing shortage if left to their own devices, state intervention is sensible — if not outright necessary.’”
Fourth Appellate District Justices Jose Castillo and David Rubin rounded out the panel along with McConnell.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Huntington Beach is “running out of excuses.”
“The consequences for failing to plan for its fair share of housing are becoming clearer and more serious,” Bonta said in a written statement. “At a time when California is experiencing a housing crisis of epic proportions, the city’s continued reluctance to follow the law is inexcusable, and we have been in court seeking accountability.”
In a statement, Huntington Beach attorney Michael Vigliotta said the city won’t back down from defending local control over housing matters.
“Huntington Beach remains deeply concerned about the impacts of state housing mandates on our environment, infrastructure, and beach community character,” Vigliotta said. “We are working with outside counsel to evaluate the court of appeal ruling. The court remanded the case to the superior court for further litigation.”