Another ruling goes against Huntington Beach in housing mandates battle

A federal appeals court has ruled against Huntington Beach in its ongoing fight against state housing mandates.

The Orange County beach city has long refused to follow state laws that address the housing crisis.

Huntington Beach’s conservative City Council majority voted in March 2023 to sue the state over its mandate to zone for 13,368 new units in the current cycle, including a percentage of low-income housing.

City Atty. Michael Gates said at the time that state mandates could not have preemptive power over Huntington Beach’s authority as a charter city. Charter cities adopt a voter-approved set of governing rules that give them more say over local affairs.

The state filed a motion to dismiss Huntington Beach’s federal lawsuit, and U.S. District Judge Fred Slaughter in November 2023 granted that motion.

In Wednesday’s two-page decision, the three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stated that “no matter how California categorizes charter cities, they remain subordinate political bodies, not sovereign entities.”

They also ruled that Huntington Beach and City Atty. Michael Gates did not have standing to sue in federal court, echoing the initial ruling last year by the district judge.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta praised the decision in a statement Wednesday.

“While the city has been wasting the public’s time and money pursuing this meritless lawsuit, its neighboring communities — along with every Californian struggling to keep a roof over their heads or wondering where they’re going to sleep tonight — need Huntington Beach to step up and adopt a housing plan without further delay,” Bonta said. “My office will continue pursuing all remedies in the state case against the city, where the court has already determined the city violated the state’s housing element law.”

The related lawsuit brought by California against the city is also in appellate court, in San Diego.

“Today, yet another court has slapped down Huntington Beach’s cynical attempt to prevent the state from enforcing our housing laws,” Gov. Gavin 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 — every city must follow state law and do its part to build more housing.”

Gates said Wednesday that he wasn’t surprised by the decision based on how the hearing went, though he obviously disagreed.

“There are almost innumerable number of California court decisions that hold that charter cities are not political subdivisions,” he said. “It’s really a misapprehension of the law and a misapplication of the law.”

He said the city could next petition for “en banc,” or full panel, review or could try to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if that review was denied.