Huntington Beach lost another round in its legal battle to resist the state’s requirements for affordable housing, officials said Thursday.
The state Supreme Court refused on Wednesday to review an appellate court ruling in the state’s favor compelling the city to adhere to state requirements for affordable housing.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta hailed the decision.
City officials argued that Huntington Beach’s status that as a charter city — which allows for more authority in governing itself — it did not have to comply with state mandates on building affordable housing. The state sued the city in March 2023, and a year later a San Diego Superior Court judge ruled the city violated the state’s Housing Element Law, but did not include mandate remedies the state wanted. Appellate court justices, however, ruled the lower court judge erred when a 120-day deadline was omitted so now the case will be sent back to the judge in San Diego to address the issue.
“Huntington Beach needs to end this pathetic NIMBY behavior,” Newsom said in a news release. “They are failing their own citizens by wasting time and money that could be used to create much-needed housing. No more excuses, you lost once again — it’s time to get building.”
Bonta said the city has “run out of excuses in our state’s courts. It was required to submit a compliant housing element on Oct. 15, 2021, more than four years ago. Rather than follow the law, the city has been squandering public money to avoid building its fair share of housing.”
The city issued this statement in response to the decision:
“The California Supreme Court on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, declined to review the Court of Appeal’s interim ruling in the state’s housing-element lawsuit. This result is not surprising: The Supreme Court rarely grants review while a case is still developing in the trial court, and major legal questions remain unresolved, including the conflict between the Housing Element Law and CEQA and the Housing Department’s uneven enforcement.
“The city sought review after the Court of Appeal’s interim decision declined to address the CEQA conflict, leaving the city in a no-win situation: facing penalties unless it adopts a housing element, even though CEQA prohibits adoption until environmental review is completed and lawful findings can be made. Because the litigation continues, Wednesday’s denial simply means the Supreme Court is not considering review at this time. The city will continue to vigorously defend its environmental stewardship, its charter-city authority and its right to fair and evenhanded enforcement of state housing laws in the Superior Court.”
The city sued the state in federal court to challenge the constitutionality of its housing laws, but the city has failed there as well in lower court and with the federal appeals court. The city has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and that is still pending.