A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has invalidated the state’s marquee law to increase the supply of affordable housing in California, finding that the 2021 measure violates the home-rule rights of charter cities to regulate development in their own communities.
Judge Curtis Kin sided with several charter-city petitioners – including Redondo Beach, Torrance and Del Mar – in a decision handed down last month. Kin granted the cities’ request for a writ of mandate invalidating Senate Bill 9, which generally requires cities to approve the construction of up to two duplexes on parcels in single-family residential parcels.
In his decision, Kin stressed that state lawmakers have ways to pass legislation to ensure improved access to affordable housing or try to address the state’s housing shortage more generally.
“However, because the provisions of SB 9 are not reasonably related and sufficiently narrowly tailored to the explicit stated purpose of that legislation – namely, to ensure access to affordable housing – SB 9 cannot stand, and the writ petition must be granted,” he said in the April 22 ruling.
The more routine approvals of duplexes and urban lot splits contained in the provisions of SB 9 would not necessarily lead to an increase in the affordable housing stock statewide, the court concluded.
“Under SB 9, charter cities would be required to approve additional housing development in single-family-zoned land, but any additional housing resulting therefrom would not necessarily be below market or accessible to people with lower financial means, especially in economically prosperous cities,” Kin stated.
The term “charter cities” refers to those municipalities that were founded with local charters. “General-law cities,” on the other hand, operate under California’s general laws. Only about 26% of the state’s 478 municipalities are charter cities, but some of the state’s largest cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, are charter cities,
“We are pleased the court’s decision recognizes the vitally important home-rule authority of charter cities,” Carolyn Coleman, executive director and CEO of the League of California Cities, said in a statement provided to the Southern California Record. “The court’s ruling reaffirms the foundational principle that land use planning and zoning are local matters.”
In 2021, more than 240 California cities opposed SB 9 when lawmakers passed the bill, the league reported.
Redondo Beach City Attorney Mike Webb said in a prepared statement that had the judge decided in favor of SB 9, the law would have effectively upended single-family zoning in California.
“We are grateful for Judge Kin’s thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion that protects the home-rule provisions of the California Constitution,” Webb said. “I also am very appreciative of the League of California Cities’ efforts in defending the rights of charter cities by filing an important amicus brief in this case.”
The law contains language requiring the lot splits or duplex approvals in single-family neighborhoods to be done ministerially, without any local discretionary review or hearing.
A league’s legal team said that because the ruling is directed at charter cities’ home-rule authority, it does not affect the enforcement of SB 9 in the state’s general-law cities.