A day long feared by local officials appears to be here: Courts are upholding a law that allows developers to build housing without city approval.
The “builder’s remedy,” which lets developers ignore zoning rules if cities don’t meet state-mandated housing plans, was upheld in two recent Los Angeles County court rulings and partially upheld in a third, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.
And that third ruling did not bode well for supporters of local zoning laws, as it only excluded “projects in California’s protected ‘Coastal Zone,’” the Daily News added.
For years, state officials have threatened lawsuits against cities who refuse to comply with state requirements that would allow for new housing to be built.
With judicial support of the builder’s remedy, developers can seemingly build a wide variety of housing projects in areas that city officials would normally deem off limits as long as the proposed projects contain a significant amount of affordable housing.
A huge number of locations in California could be affected.
“Just eight of Southern California’s 197 cities and counties met their February 2022 deadline to have approved housing plans,” the Daily News reports. “As of this month, 58 jurisdictions in Southern California and 35 in the Bay Area still lacked state-approved plans.
“That backlog of unapproved plans created a golden opportunity for developers to pitch projects that cities otherwise wouldn’t approve.”