Huntington Beach, Redondo Beach and three other Los Angeles County cities are the latest to challenge the state’s ability to enforce housing laws in California’s 121 charter cities.
Huntington Beach filed a federal lawsuit March 9, challenging the constitutionality of the state’s 53-year-old homebuilding mandates.
Redondo Beach, Torrance, Carson and Whittier jointly filed a lawsuit last year challenging Senate Bill 9, which allows homeowners to build up to four homes on a single-family lot.
READ MORE: California is suing Huntington Beach for limiting housing developments
Charter cities from San Mateo to San Jose, from Berkeley to Los Angeles have a long history of battling the state over “home rule” authority.
Daniel Golub, a San Francisco-based land use and housing law attorney with Holland & Knight, has argued leading cases regarding charter city authority and housing law and has written on the topic.
We asked him to clarify how the law affects charter cities. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What, in a nutshell, is a charter city?
A: State law provides a set of requirements governing how city governments must operate. By default, a city is subject to those general requirements, and so most cities are “general law” cities.
But a city can also decide that it wishes to adopt its own “charter,” which is essentially a local government constitution. Once a city has adopted a charter, the city’s internal operations are governed by the city’s own charter rather than the state’s “general law.”
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The California Constitution also gives charter cities an important – but importantly limited – exemption from complying with certain state laws, but only within the field of “municipal affairs.”
Q: Can charter cities ignore state housing laws?
A: No. State law prevails over local law. And the courts have said – over and over again – that…
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