An advocacy group has sued the state of California challenging the constitutionality of housing legislation which was signed into law by Gov.Gavin Newsom on Sept. 16,
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is alleging in its Sept. 22 lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, that Senate Bill (SB)10 allows local governments to disregard provisions of enacted initiative measures that impact planning and land use in local jurisdictions.
“The state has eviscerated the fundamental protection against subsequent legislative amendment of initiatives without a vote of the people,” wrote AIDS Healthcare Foundation attorney Beverly Grossman Palmer in the 11-page complaint. “Under SB 10, a local government may ignore the land-use restrictions included in a local initiative and rezone real properties to increase their allowable, residential density regardless of express local procedures, prohibitions, or conditions that the people established via initiative ordinance.”
The lawsuit was filed after the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution in opposition to Senate Bill 10. California Attorney General Rob Bonta is named as a defendant.
“The Los Angeles City Council has been one of the leading causes of homelessness in the state of California,” said Matt Lewis, director of communications for the housing group Yes In My Back Yard (YIMBY). “On the entire West Side of Los Angeles, it is illegal to build anything but a single unit house. That is 75% of the land in the city of Los Angeles that they have made off-limits to more housing. They have the worst housing overcrowding in the developed world, not just in the United States, but in the developed world.”
Plaintiffs allege that SB 10 will target low-income black and brown communities and that the legislation does not include provisions for affordable housing or homeless housing, according to media reports.
But Lewis said their fears are unfounded.
“Most single-family homes in California are owner-occupied,” Lewis told the Southern California Record. “The only way they would end up not living in their home is if they choose to sell it and move out of it.”
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is asking the court to enjoin the state from enforcing SB 10 and issue declaratory relief that the provisions of SB 10 violate the right to an initiative that is reserved to the people in the California constitution. The plaintiffs further request that the court award them costs and attorney fees.
“We have the highest homelessness in the country,” Lewis said in an interview. “We have the highest rate of poverty in the country. We have the highest rate of housing overcrowding in the country. The middle-class is fleeing the state and the only people moving to California are very wealthy workers, which is a result of the decision in the 1970s and 1980s to reduce the number of homes that could be legally built across the state.”