Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta announced another ruling against the city of Huntington Beach in a three-year legal battle over the state’s affordable housing requirements.
A San Diego County Superior Court judge tossed Huntington Beach’s lawsuit against the state and granted an anti-SLAPP motion filed by Bonta and the California Department of Housing and Community Development. Judge Katherine A. Bacal rejected the city’s view that the state’s Housing Element Law and the California Environmental Quality Act are conflicting laws and that the state can’t compel the city to violate CEQA by seeking to enforce the Housing Element Law, according to her June 30 ruling.
The judge also rejected the argument that the state’s rezoning exemption guidelines do not support the city’s claims it should delay its housing element update to accommodate CEQA review.
“In ruling after ruling, the city of Huntington Beach has lost, but the hapless leaders there continue to miss the message: It’s time to do your job, create the housing your community needs, and stop wasting taxpayer dollars on defending your ridiculous NIMBY agenda,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re literally running out of new ways to tell you that you’ve lost.”
Bonta recalled the course of legal action that started in March 2023, when the state sued Huntington Beach for violating the law requiring cities to update housing plans.
“Huntington Beach claimed it was immune from state housing laws because it’s a charter city. It lost,” Bonta said in a statement. “It claimed that having to comply with state housing laws violated its First Amendment rights. It lost. Now it’s lost on its claim that the State can be sued simply for enforcing state housing law. No more excuses. It’s time for the City to adopt and implement a lawful housing element.”
Huntington Beach officials did not respond to requests for comment.
City Attorney Mike Vigliotta wrote a memo that noted potential fines and penalties if Huntington Beach remains noncompliant.
“The city has been ordered to pay penalties and is facing an imminent risk of being ordered to pay additional fines and penalties,” Vigliotta wrote.
A May 14 court order imposed fines of $10,000 per month from the effective date of Jan. 1 through May and further penalties of $50,000 monthly beginning in June until the city complies with state housing law.
“The City Council’s (June 16) adoption of the Housing Element Update was done to cure the violation that triggered the penalties,” Vigliotta wrote. Over the last several months attorneys for the city have requested more time for the council, and the court granted an extension to May 28 to adopt a housing element.
“In addition to the above fines, on July 1, the California Attorney General is seeking to impose additional penalties, including up to $100,000 in fines per month,” according to Vigliotta. State law “also provides that, after three months following the imposition of fines, the court may multiply the fine by three. Thereafter, if the city still has not complied, then the court may multiply the fine by a factor of six and can appoint a receiver … to take control over land use decisions.”
Vigliotta noted that if the council had not OK’d the housing element update, “the city risked being ordered to pay exponentially higher fines and having a receiver appointed.”
Last year, the trial court agreed with the state that the city had violated the law but did not impose a 120-day deadline for the city to update its plan, according to the governor’s office. The court also did not specify consequences limiting the city’s control over permitting and land development until its housing plan is in compliance with the law.
The state has secured multiple rulings against the city of Huntington Beach, including an appeals court ruling compelling the city to correct the housing law violations. In May, a Superior Court Judge ordered the city to pay financial penalties for its lack of an up-to-date plan to add more affordable housing units.
The deadline for Huntington Beach to submit a compliant housing element was Oct. 15, 2021, according to the governor’s office.
Following the state’s March 2023 lawsuit filing, the city pursued legal action of its own, including a cross-complaint accusing the state of acting unlawfully by bringing the enforcement action. The June 30 ruling in San Diego rejected that move.
“The court found that the city’s cross-complaint arose from the State’s protected activity of enforcing California law and that the city failed to demonstrate its claims had even the minimal merit required to survive an anti-SLAPP motion,” according to Bonta’s office. “As a result, the court struck the city’s cross-complaint and ruled that the State is entitled to seek recovery of its attorney’s fees incurred in defending against it.”
At a hearing scheduled for July 17, the San Diego court will next consider issues that include assessing penalties for the city’s continued failure to comply with the Housing Element Law and a pending affordable housing application.
According to Newsom’s office, he called for the creation of the Housing Accountability Unit at HCD to ensure cities and counties fulfill their legal responsibilities to plan for and issue permits for housing construction. Since its establishment in 2022, the Housing Accountability Unit has supported the development of 13,451 housing units, including more than 3,852 affordable residences, through enforcement actions and by working with cities and counties to make sure they comply with housing regulations. In 2024, officials added homelessness housing issues to the unit’s purview of compliance enforcement.
The governor’s office credited strategies to address housing and homelessness with a 9.5% decrease statewide of unsheltered homelessness, the first decrease in over 15 years.
