Huntington Beach fought California housing law, and the state won — for now.
A federal appeals court affirmed a lower court decision to toss a lawsuit by Huntington Beach that sought to skirt a state housing law requiring the city plan for thousands of homes, the Orange County Register reported.
A three-panel judge from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed the ruling that the case be dismissed. Huntington Beach officials vowed to appeal the case to a larger court, or even the Supreme Court.
It’s the latest loss for city officials in Surf City, where officials filed the federal lawsuit in March of last year, hours after the state sued the city for refusing to rezone the city for 13,400 homes by 2029, an eight-year process known as a housing element. Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark has vowed to seek an appeal in their bid to exert local control over zoning and development in general amid state mandates and legal avenues such as builders remedy, which is working its way through the real estate market and courts in California.
A district court judge dismissed the case last fall, ruling the city did not have standing to bring federal constitutional claims challenging state housing allocation laws.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, who have often criticized Huntington Beach’s efforts to thwart state housing mandates, celebrated the appellate court decision.
“Today, yet another court has slapped down Huntington Beach’s cynical attempt to prevent the state from enforcing our housing laws,” Newsom said in a statement. “Huntington Beach officials’ continued efforts to advance plainly unlawful NIMBY policies are failing their own citizens — by wasting time and taxpayer dollars that could be used to create much-needed housing.
“No more excuses,” he said. “Every city must follow state law and do its part to build more housing.”
Huntington Beach has long argued that its charter city status makes it exempt from certain state housing laws. State and federal judges, however, disagree.
The appeals court judges wrote that California cities remain subordinate political bodies to the state, no matter how they are categorized, or whether or not they are a charter city.
They also wrote that Surf City Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark and Councilman Tony Strickland can’t invoke free speech rights as a way to avoid signing documents that are part of the housing mandates, as the OC city had sought.
City Attorney Michael Gates said the state having the power to dictate how a city council must vote on housing is “fundamentally un-American and unconstitutional.”
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Gates said Huntington Beach will request a hearing from a larger panel of judges to try to get a new ruling. If that doesn’t get the case reinstated, he said city leaders will petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.
“We have to keep fighting,” Gates said. “At some point, the tide is going to turn … and we are going to start to get more favorable rulings.”
— Dana Bartholomew