The developer behind a proposed 259-unit housing project on Del Mar’s North Bluff is suing the city after more than a year of tense communications, alleging that the city’s repeated rejection of the project application violates state Housing Element law. The lawsuit is the latest chapter in the saga of the Seaside Ridge development, which was first proposed to the city in the fall of 2022. In the complaint filed in San Diego County Superior Court on Friday, the landowner claimed that the city is required to move forward under the Builder's Remedy. As discussed in our prior alert, the Builder’s Remedy applies when a local jurisdiction has not adopted a revised Housing Element in compliance with state law, in which case the local jurisdiction cannot deny a qualifying housing development project even if it is inconsistent with the general plan and zoning ordinance (subject to limited exceptions).
Each year, thousands of San Jose residents apply for affordable housing, but only a tiny fraction land a low-income apartment. To give many of the city’s most vulnerable renters a better shot at a unit, local officials are weighing whether to reserve a portion of San Jose’s cost-restricted rentals for those from neighborhoods where people are most likely to be forced out because of high housing costs. The proposed policy would set aside 20% of apartments in new city-funded affordable housing projects for low-income applicants from high-displacement areas. It would also commit 15% of such units for applicants who live in the same neighborhood as a newly constructed complex.
U.S. Senator Alex Padilla on February 21 announced the reintroduction of a bill he said would offer a comprehensive approach to addressing the nation’s homelessness and affordable housing crises, including in California. The Housing for All Act, if approved, would result in a historic investment in federal funding to pay for existing programs to prevent homelessness and to provide housing and other support services to those facing homelessness. The money would also fund innovative local initiatives to remedy these crises.
California Assemblymember Matt Haney has introduced a new bill, AB 2216, which would require all California landlords to allow pets. In a statement, Haney explained the reasoning behind the bill, saying that there are more tenants than there are landlords who accept pets. Research by Haney's team analyzed Zillow listings and found that only 18% of apartment listings in Sacramento allow cats and dogs. Opponents of the plan say landlords and owners should be able to determine if pets are allowed at their discretion.
A San Diego Superior Court judge heard arguments last Friday over whether she should suspend some of Huntington Beach’s development authority, which could prevent the city from issuing building permits and making zoning changes, as part of the state’s lawsuit to get the city to build more housing. “The city is standing in the way of the entire region meeting its housing need,” Deputy Attorney General Matthew Struhar said during oral arguments. “Because the city is doing that, the law requires accountability.” Huntington Beach has been in a nearly year-long dispute with the state for not adopting a new housing element, which every California city is required to have. City Attorney Michael Gates said the state is using a “grab bag of different statutes” that don’t apply. The lawsuit, he said, was cobbled together to be aggressive and punitive.
On the north edge of the Salton Sea, a movement is gaining steam to create a new national monument that would protect swaths of recreational land used by the valley’s communities of color. A coalition of environmental groups and tribes is urging the federal government to designate large sections of land there with similar protections to national parks. National monuments are typically shielded from mining and drilling and can also open the door for tribes and federal agencies to work together to manage the land. The proposed Chuckwalla National Monument would grant some of those protections to around 660,000 acres of federally-owned high desert straddling the Coachella Valley and eastern Imperial County.
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