HUNTINGTON BEACH CIVIC CENTER (Orange County Tribune photo).
By a staff writer
The price of being a maverick may be $50,000 a month.
A Superior Court judge last week ordered the City of Huntington Beach to pay that amount for its failure to submit a “compliant” housing element that zones for about 13,000 more homes in Surf City.
The original deadline for the plan was Oct. 15, 2021, but the Huntington Beach City Council, on advice of then-city attorney Michael Gates, decided to not comply.
Gates told the council that Huntington Beach, being a charter city, had legal and constitutional authority to defy the state.
The State of California sued Huntington Beach in March 2023 and prevailed in court in May 2024. A new law in September 2024 imposed a mand
atory minimum penalty of up to $50,000 for city’s that refuse to comply on time, which would be May 28.
The battle may not be over. “The city strongly opposes these penalties and will continue fighting for the rights of our residents and for the principle of local control against the efforts by the Attorney General Rob Bonta to centralize land use authority in Sacramento,” said Mayor Casey McKeon.
