Second Appellate District justices Thursday upheld a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge’s ruling dismissing an attempt by cities in Orange and Los Angeles counties challenging the state’s allocation of required affordable housing.
The Orange County Council of Governments joined with cities Redondo Beach, Lakewood, Torrance, Cerritos, Downey and Whittier in appealing a judge’s dismissal of an earlier appeal on an affordable housing allocation for the region.
In August 2019, the state Department of Housing “assigned a total of 1,344,740 dwelling units” of affordable housing in the Southern California region for this decade, the justices wrote. The Southern California Association of Governments formally objected and the state finalized its assignment to 1,341,827.
The plaintiffs said it was twice as much as needed by the end of the decade, arguing the state’s calculation was based on a “wrong population forecast” and other factors that they said the state hadn’t considered in previous housing cycles.
The justices pointed to precedent in a 2008 Irvine case that found the courts are precluded from arbitrating disputes in the process.
The process is designed to compel cooperation between the state and local governments through a series of reviews and keep the courts out of it, the justices wrote.
According to the precedent cites in Thursday’s ruling, lawmakers “intended to eliminate resort to traditional judicial remedies to challenge a local government’s regional housing needs allocation so as to avoid the disruption of local planning that would result from interference through the litigation process.”
The justices wrote that the precedent in the Irvine case “applies with equal force to plaintiffs’ claims here. The legislature enacted the (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) statutes to address California’s shortage of affordable housing promptly. The intricate and yearslong administrative process that leads to the allocation of regional housing needs `reflects a clear intent on the part of the legislature’ to restrict judicial intervention.”
A favorable ruling for one city would cause a domino effect that would disrupt the planning for neighboring cities and regions, the justices wrote.
“I am disappointed but not surprised,” said Orange County Board Chairman Don Wagner, vice chairman of the Orange County Council of Governments. “The legal deck is stacked against responsible local control and in favor of mindless bureaucratic control by Sacramento special interests.”