CALIFORNIA — The state asked two coastal California cities, one northern and one southern, to build thousands of homes to help address the regional housing crisis.
So, the Bay Area community of Alameda approved a plan to create more than 5,000 units in eight years. The Orange County city of Huntington Beach, on the other hand, is suing the state.
In recent years, California had the nation’s second-highest homelessness rate, according to a Public Policy Institute of California report from 2020, which noted less than a third of households could afford a median-priced home in the third quarter of 2019.
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State housing officials say California needs an additional 2.5 million homes by 2030 in order to keep up with demand. But the state currently builds about 125,000 houses each year, which leaves California well short of that goal. California has about 170,000 homeless people on any given night, accounting for nearly one-third of the nation’s unsheltered population, according to federal data.
Nearly 100 bills related to housing and zoning have become law in recent years, said Jason Rhine, assistant legislative director for the League of California Cities.
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“We’ve amended nearly every aspect of housing law in California,” he said. “We’re seeing the changes play out and there’s a lot of uncertainty.”
For Alameda, the only way out was through.
In November, its City Council approved a plan to add 5,353 housing units by 2031 in accordance with the Regional Housing Needs Allocation, a process that requires communities to formulate a strategy every eight years on how to meet housing demands set by the state.
“The housing crisis has gotten so serious in California that nobody argues that there isn’t a housing crisis anymore,” said Andrew Thomas, head of planning, building and transportation for Alameda. “We have children in the Alameda school district who live with their parents in a car.”
The remedy? According to Alameda, it’s a mix of large projects at the former Naval Air Station owned by the city and at Alameda’s shopping center sites, as well as less drastic additions such as new housing units in backyards and converted Victorian homes. The planned units will range from three-bedroom residences to studios, and about half of them will be created with low- or moderate-income residents in mind.
“We’re not going to just put all our affordable housing in certain neighborhoods,” Thomas said. “No neighborhood is off limits to new housing.”
This rhetoric is a departure from the Alameda of 50 years ago when voters amended the city charter to ban the construction of multi-family housing, a policy that city leaders have since removed from Alameda’s general plan and zoning rules, relying on state law to make the changes.
“State law says you have to accommodate multi-family housing,” Thomas said. “No city can say, hey, you know what, we don’t want to do any more housing.”
After three years of community outreach and some very heated meetings, Alameda has adjusted its approach, while maintaining neighborhood-specific height limits and setbacks.
“Alameda took the housing crisis seriously and we took state laws to address the housing crisis seriously because we believe there is a housing crisis and we believe every city in California needs to do its share,” Thomas said.
The city of Huntington Beach feels that it has done its share and that the state’s request for it to add 13,368 housing units by 2029 is both unreasonable and illegal.
“The city would literally be increasing its current housing stock by 50 percent,” said City Attorney Michael Gates. “If the city were suddenly practically overnight to increase 50 percent, we don’t have the infrastructure for that.”
Huntington Beach has sued the state, arguing the housing quotas disregard the city’s status as a charter city and that California housing laws have the potential to impact the votes and expression of City Council members, according to Gates. He also noted a 2022 audit found the state’s method of determining housing quotas was flawed.
“The state is essentially trying to tell our City Council how they have to vote on housing and what they should say and what they should do, and it is a violation of free speech and other constitutional rights,” Gates said. “It should be local decision-makers making those decisions.”
California has sued Huntington Beach as well, claiming the city violated state housing laws, with Gov. Gavin Newsom calling the community’s leadership “the poster child for NIMBY-ism.”
This is the second time California officials have sued Huntington Beach for not following state housing laws. The city settled the first lawsuit back in 2020.
As for the question of affordable housing, Huntington Beach leaders believe the high cost of housing in California can be traced to state-imposed environmental regulations on developments, according to Gates.
“The state should get out of the way and reduce the red tape and the regulations,” he said. “The state is trying to solve a problem it created.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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