Rancho Palos Verdes, California
LOS ANGELES - A California state appeals panel has agreed the state government can restrict certain local communities' abilities to approve building plans and plan their own development, with a goal of increasing affordable housing stock without violating the California state constitution.
The California Second Appellate District Court ruling, filed Sept. 4, clarifies Senate Bill 9 as enacted in 2021 and effective in 2022. According to court records, the law requires local governments to approve both splitting of single-family urban lots and development of two-unit projects within areas zoned single-family residential. The effect is allowing up for four new housing units on urban lots once zoned for single families.
Rancho Palos Verdes, Lakewood, Paramount and Simi Valley took the state to court, arguing SB 9 violated the state constitution because it “usurps a city’s authority over its own municipal affairs,” replacing “local land use and zoning control” with a “one-size-fits all approach throughout the state, notwithstanding each community’s varying needs and unique natural and physical environment.” They also argued the law doesn’t meet its stated goal because none of the requirements address affordability standards.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff granted the state’s motion to dismiss the complaint, concluding the municipalities couldn’t invoke the municipal affairs doctrine or state a claim under article XI, section 5 of the state constitution, nor did they demonstrate a likelihood of successfully amending the complaint.
Justice Audrey Collins wrote the appellate panel’s opinion, filed Sept. 4; Justices Audra Mori and Armen Tamzarian concurred. Although the panel granted the cities’ request to take notice of another state court ruling regarding SB 9, it declined to consider a recent executive order temporarily suspending the law in areas affected by recent wildfires and then rejected the remaining contentions and affirmed Judge Beckloff’s rulings.
The state argued “allowing the development of additional housing units can be reasonably expected to decrease housing costs, or at least slow their rise, by increasing the aggregate supply of housing” and further contended it’s “entirely rational for the Legislature to conclude that by requiring local governments to approve relevant housing projects ministerially, potential barriers to affordable housing development would be mitigated and the development of additional housing in California would be encouraged, contributing to both an increase in available housing and a decrease in overall housing costs statewide.”
Based on that position, the state continued, SB 9 represents a constitutional method of addressing affordable housing concerns and therefore pre-empts contradicting local ordinances. It further said the municipal affairs doctrine allowing certain local laws to be excepted from prevalent state law applies only to charter cities, not general law cities like the plaintiffs in this action.
Collins said the panel’s “analysis begins and largely ends” with that issue, explaining the established principle that unless the state constitution says otherwise, state lawmakers can expand or restrict the powers of general law cities at will.
“Only charter cities are protected by the municipal affairs doctrine,” Collins wrote. “Indeed, appellants concede that ‘as general law cities, (they) are not entitled to the deference afforded charter cities under the municipal affairs doctrine, and SB 9 preempts any local enactments in conflict with it.’ ”
Still, the cities insisted they can challenge the application of the law and reiterated the insistence SB 9 lacks a sufficient relationship to affordable housing to pass constitutional muster. But the panel agreed with Judge Beckloff’s determination the cities didn’t identify which constitutional provision lawmakers supposedly violated, nor did they show why their complaint, “which poses questions of law, presents an exception to the general rule that constitutional challenges may be resolved at the pleading stage.”
The panel said Beckloff didn’t abuse discretion by denying the cities a chance to amend their complaint, agreeing they can’t remedy defects “by amending their complaint to allege an as-applied challenge and pleading more specific facts related to the application of SB 9 to each of them,” Collins wrote. Appellants have not demonstrated the existence of any protected right here; as general law cities, they cannot invoke the municipal affairs doctrine to challenge state laws contrary to their own ordinances. Further, the additional allegations they propose adding to an amended complaint are not materially different from those included in the operative complaint.”
Ultimately, the panel said, the cities didn’t make specific factual allegations of the law being applied in any way that violates the state constitution and “accordingly have failed to demonstrate any reasonable possibility that the complaint can be amended to state a viable as-applied claim.”
The local governments are represented by attorneys with the firm of Aleshire & Wynder.
The state is represented by the office of Attorney General Rob Bonta.
