Federal court rules against Huntington Beach in housing case

A federal judge has ruled against the city of Huntington Beach in its lawsuit with the state of California over housing mandates.

U.S. District Judge Fred Slaughter issued his decision Monday, in City of Huntington Beach et al. vs. Gavin Newsom et al., granting motions to dismiss by defendants including state leaders and the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

Huntington Beach’s conservative City Council majority voted to sue the state in March over its state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Allocation requirement to zone for 13,368 new units in the current cycle, including a percentage of low-income housing. Huntington Beach City Atty. Michael Gates said at the time that state mandates could not have preemptive power over Surf City’s authority as a charter city.

But Slaughter disagreed in a 15-page decision, dismissing Gates’ claims that California has violated the city’s 1st Amendment protection for compelled speech and 14th Amendment due process protections.

Slaughter cited City of S. Lake Tahoe vs. California Tahoe Reg’l Plan. Agency.

“In this case, although plaintiffs maintain they each have standing to bring federal constitutional claims challenging the RHNA laws, the court finds each group of plaintiffs lacks standing based on Ninth Circuit precedent,” Slaughter wrote.

“We filed a motion to dismiss Huntington Beach’s federal lawsuit because we believed it was meritless,” California Atty. General Rob Bonta said in a statement. “We are pleased that the court agreed. With this behind us, we look forward to prosecuting our state case against Huntington Beach. Everyone must do their part to address California’s housing crisis.”

Gates said in a text message to the Daily Pilot that he disagreed with the judge’s ruling, noting that South Lake Tahoe is a general law city as opposed to a charter city like Huntington Beach.

“Moreover, the federal court decision was dismissive of other compelling First Amendment standing issues without explanation,” Gates wrote. “We will appeal this decision to the Ninth Circuit. The city’s lawsuit is compelling and should be given a full, proper analysis under the law.”

California filed its own state lawsuit against Huntington Beach after the city first declined to process applications for accessory dwelling units, then in April voted against approving a state-compliant housing element. A judge had recently ordered a stay in that state lawsuit until this federal lawsuit against the state was decided.

State Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine), whose district includes part of Huntington Beach, praised the U.S. District Court’s decision on Tuesday.

“Today’s court decision to grant Attorney General Rob Bonta’s motion to dismiss Huntington Beach’s lawsuit against the state’s housing laws illustrates just how inane and pointless this litigation was,” Min said in a statement. “For the record, a motion to dismiss is only granted if there is no triable issue of fact. Once again, I want to encourage the newly elected H.B. Council majority to stop wasting your taxpayers’ dollars on political posturing and instead get to work on addressing the real problems that your residents are facing.”