Newsom’s misguided fight for control of local housing development decisions

In one of his first acts as governor, Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit against the Orange County city of Huntington Beach for failing to meet state-mandated housing goals.

Some observers wondered why Surf City was singled out for this action, when more than 50 local governments similarly fail to build enough housing to comply with the requirements of state law.

It may have something to do with a lawsuit Huntington Beach filed against Newsom and the state on Jan. 17. The city is challenging the constitutionality of Senate Bill 35, a 2017 law authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. “SB35 seeks to create a system where the state controls how, where and when housing is built in every city in California,” the lawsuit charges, arguing that the state may not “commandeer cities’ discretionary land use authority over where and how the construction of housing can take place in a city.”

In 1967, California passed a law telling all local governments to “adequately plan to meet the housing needs of everyone in the community.” As the Department of Housing and Community Development explains, “California’s local governments meet this requirement by adopting housing plans as part of their ‘general plan’ (also required by the state).”

A local government’s general plan includes seven elements: land use, transportation, conservation, noise, open space, safety and housing.

The question is, who’s in charge of approving new housing developments in your community? Your local elected officials or the state government?

Huntington Beach’s lawsuit cites Section 5(a) of Article XI of the California Constitution, which provides that “a Charter City shall not be governed by State law in respect to ‘Municipal Affairs.’” It cites a 1994 state court ruling in City of Irvine v. Irvine Citizens Against Overdevelopment, which held that “regulation of local land use and local zoning are vital and core functions of local government, and are therefore ‘Municipal Affairs’ of a Charter City.”

Under state law, cities can be organized under the general laws of the state, or under their own charters adopted by local voters. Charter cities have more local control. There are over 400 incorporated cities and towns in California, and while only 121 are charter cities such as Huntington Beach, you’ve probably heard of some of them — Los Angeles, Sacramento, Modesto, Fresno, Pasadena, Long Beach, San Bernardino, Riverside, Redondo Beach, Irvine and Cerritos, as well as Newport Beach, Placentia, Burbank, Glendale, Lancaster, Torrance, Whittier, Seal Beach, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland and San Diego.

Gov. Newsom’s fight for control of local housing development decisions turns out to be a fight against most of the voters in California. It’s an interesting political choice.

Meanwhile, the California Building Industry Association is negotiating with the State Building & Construction Trades Council over what may become a new state law, if they can get it past the environmental lobbyists. You probably thought elected officials made laws in California. Well, we all made that mistake once.

The developers and the union leaders are working on a deal that would give certain housing projects a waiver from certain headaches under the California Environmental Quality Act in exchange for a guarantee that the construction workers hired to build them would be paid the prevailing wage, a union-directed rate that far exceed pay rates for non-union workers.

Environmental groups are worried that this deal, if it happens, would liberate developers to build single-family housing tracts in outlying areas instead of stacked apartments near transit stations, and that will diminish California’s “leadership” on climate change.

So if the final deal includes mandates from the green wish-list, like electric water heaters or bike lanes, you’ll know why.

Newsom will probably lose his fight to control Huntington Beach. In a 1974 case involving Merced, an appeals court ruling stated: “regulation of land use, particularly in relation to multi-unit housing which results in population saturation, vehicular congestion and elimination of open space for park and recreation areas, is of vital concern to a municipality.”

People have every right to be concerned about negative impacts from new housing developments on traffic, parking, infrastructure and the value of their property. Local politicians certainly know that, even if state politicians have forgotten it.

Susan Shelley is an editorial writer and columnist for the Southern California News Group. Susan@SusanShelley.com. Twitter: @Susan_Shelley.

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