Another ruling goes against Huntington Beach in housing mandates battle

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday against Huntington Beach in its ongoing fight against state housing mandates.

Huntington Beach’s conservative City Council majority voted to sue the state in March 2023 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.

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, ruling that the city lacked standing based on 9th Circuit precedent, citing City of S. Lake Tahoe vs. California Tahoe Reg’l Plan. Agency.

At the time that ruling was made, Gates said he disagreed with the judge, noting that South Lake Tahoe is a general law city, not a charter city like Huntington Beach.

During his appeal before the 9th Circuit panel last week, Gates presented the same argument, but the judges were openly skeptical.

In Wednesday’s two-page decision, Judges Richard Tallman, Ryan Nelson and Daniel Bress stated that “no matter how California categorizes charter cities, they remain subordinate political bodies, not sovereign entities.”

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

“We are not persuaded by the city’s efforts to differentiate South Lake Tahoe,” the ruling reads. “The city argues that our standing bar does not apply because Huntington Beach is a charter city, which it claims is not a ‘political subdivision.’ Yet our precedent has applied South Lake Tahoe’s standing rule to California’s charter cities.”

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 state lawsuit 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, so for that reason, we obviously have recourse.”

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