By Vanguard Staff
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California Superior Court judge has ordered the city of Huntington Beach to pay escalating financial penalties for failing to comply with state housing law, marking the latest development in a yearslong legal battle between the state and the Orange County city over affordable housing obligations.
According to the Governor’s Office, the court ordered Huntington Beach to pay $160,000 in penalties tied to its noncompliance and imposed an additional $50,000 monthly penalty beginning in June if the city fails to remedy the violations.
The litigation stems from a lawsuit filed by the state in March 2023 alleging Huntington Beach violated California law by failing to adopt a compliant housing element, the state-mandated plan cities must use to accommodate housing needs across income levels.
Gov. Gavin Newsom sharply criticized city officials following the ruling.
“Huntington Beach officials are failing their community by wasting time and vast sums of taxpayer dollars to defend clearly unlawful NIMBY policies and fight against affordability,” Newsom said in a statement released Thursday.
“Citizens in this community should be appalled by their city leaders’ actions here which will cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties, with more growing each month,” the governor added. “No more excuses — every city must follow state law and do its part to build more housing.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta also praised the court’s decision and accused Huntington Beach of refusing to address the state’s broader housing crisis.
“Huntington Beach has obstinately and illegally refused to do its part to address our state’s housing crisis, and today, it’s paying for it,” Bonta said.
“This civil penalty is a costly lesson for Huntington Beach that drives home the truth we’ve known all along: No city is above the law,” Bonta continued. “Huntington Beach must stop wasting public funds and avoiding its responsibilities to the public.”
Bonta added that the state expects the city to comply with the court order moving forward.
“We expect Huntington Beach to heed the court order and finally step up to serve its residents,” he said. “At the California Department of Justice, we will continue to do our part to uphold the law and fight for affordable housing for all Californians.”
Under California law, cities are required to periodically update housing elements demonstrating how they will accommodate projected housing needs at all income levels. The deadline for Huntington Beach to submit a compliant housing element was Oct. 15, 2021.
According to the Governor’s Office, the city is now more than four-and-a-half years behind schedule.
State officials argued that during that period Huntington Beach could have advanced affordable housing opportunities but instead chose to litigate against the state.
The legal conflict escalated after the state filed suit in 2023. In May 2024, a trial court ruled in favor of the state, finding Huntington Beach violated state housing law. Later that year, the Fourth District Court of Appeal ordered the city to remedy its violations.
The dispute also comes amid broader efforts by California officials to crack down on local resistance to housing development, particularly in cities accused by state leaders of embracing exclusionary or anti-growth policies.
In September 2024, Newsom signed Senate Bill 1037, authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, which established mandatory penalties for jurisdictions failing to adopt compliant housing elements on time.
Under the law, cities that refuse to comply face a minimum penalty of $10,000 per month. The law also requires penalties to increase to $50,000 per month if a jurisdiction ignores a court-ordered compliance deadline.
Thursday’s ruling applies those provisions directly to Huntington Beach.
According to the Governor’s Office, the court ordered the city to pay $10,000 per month retroactively beginning in January 2025. Those penalties will increase to $50,000 per month beginning in June 2026 if the city remains out of compliance.
The court also ordered Huntington Beach to adopt a compliant housing element by May 28, 2026.
State leaders have repeatedly argued that local resistance to new housing — particularly affordable housing — has contributed significantly to California’s housing shortage and affordability crisis.
The administration has increasingly framed enforcement actions not simply as regulatory disputes, but as necessary interventions to address rising homelessness, escalating housing costs and persistent shortages across the state.
The Huntington Beach litigation also signals the growing willingness of the state to impose financial consequences on cities that fail to comply with housing mandates.
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“We expect Huntington Beach to heed the court order and finally step up to serve its residents,”
You mean to serve its not residents.
“Huntington Beach is for Everyone”
So is Atherton.
Though I do wonder what would eventually happen if city officials outright ignored the fines. Would they put council members in debtor’s prison, at that point?
And would Trump (I mean Newsom/Bonta) just appoint their own “Fed chairman” to run the city at that point?
Perhaps going door-to-door, shaking down the residents?
It is interesting, though. If Newsom and Bonta seek to “punish” a city – who, exactly are they punishing? It doesn’t seem likely that council members will be getting out their personal checkbooks.
And what will the political fallout from that type of punishment be?
Who gets blamed in the end regarding whatever impact that has?
None of this is going to end well for the state, in the long run. That’s probably why they only go after the most-egregious cases (while simultaneously trying to scare other cities into submission). That’s why we see these type of press releases/comments from officials.
It’s almost exactly the way Trump operates (e.g., launching criminal probes of his enemies).
But until the YIMBYs are rooted-out from our one-party state . . .
(There really isn’t much choice regarding the candidates that make it onto the ballot.)
This does remind me of how Proposition 13 was initiated. The state was not responsive to its residents.