Seven times in the past eight years, Huntington Beach went to court to claim immunity from state laws because it’s a charter city.
In six of those cases, it lost.
But that’s not stopping the maverick Southern California beach town from reasserting its independence from state laws one more time.
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On March 9, the city sued the state in federal court, arguing that state homebuilding requirements and other state laws are invalid and don’t apply to charter cities.
It’s true California’s 121 charter cities have greater autonomy.
But their authority is limited to “municipal affairs” affecting their own constituents, such as taxation, city elections and employment, housing law experts say. Charter cities still are subject to statutes deemed matters of “statewide concern.”
Here’s a list of past legal bouts and how they were resolved.
July 2015: The Kennedy Commission, a nonprofit housing group, sues Huntington Beach over the city’s decision to eliminate 413 affordable housing units from its zoning plan for the northeast part of the city. The California Department of Housing and Community Development also decertifies the city’s homebuilding plan, or “housing element,” based on that decision.
In 2017, however, a state appeals court upholds the city’s claim that as a charter city, it was exempt from state provisions requiring it to restore those affordable housing units to city plans. A state provision exempted charter cities from some state planning law requirements, the court ruled.
April 2018: Huntington Beach sues the state claiming charter cities were immune from Senate Bill 54, the “sanctuary state law” that limits cooperation between local police and federal immigration authorities.
In January 2020, a state appeals court rejects Huntington Beach’s charter city claim and orders it to follow the “sanctuary state law.” The case bears some…
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