Newsom calls out cities that fail to plan for housing
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday he plans to invite leaders of 45 noncompliant California cities and two counties to a “candid conversation” aimed at encouraging them to find “the political courage to build their fair share of housing.”
The list includes 15 cities in Los Angeles County and six in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties that have failed to draft general plans meeting minimum housing needs at all income levels.
When and where the proposed summit will occur have yet to be determined, a spokesman for the governor’s office said Tuesday, Feb. 12.
Newsom mentioned the 47 jurisdictions during his State of the State speech in Sacramento, calling housing one of the most “overwhelming challenges” in a state where six out of 10 young adults say they can’t afford to live.
“California should never be a place where only the well-off can lead a good life,” Newsom said in his prepared speech. “It starts with housing, perhaps our most overwhelming challenge right now. We all know the problem. There’s too much demand and too little supply. And that is happening in large part because too many cities and counties aren’t even planning for how to build. Some are flat out refusing to do anything at all.”
Newsom referred to a lawsuit California filed Jan. 25 against the Orange County city of Huntington Beach, accusing it of backing out of a promise to revise low-income housing goals in its general plan. The suit stems from a 2016 vote to reduce affordable housing units in response to a citizen outcry opposing high-density and low-income residences.
Newsom said that as a former San Francisco mayor, he disliked starting his tenure by suing a city.
“But they left us no choice,” he said.
Some of the 47 cities and counties are making an effort to comply, the governor said.
“Others are not, like Wheatland, Huntington Park, and Montebello,” he said. “I don’t intend to file suit against all 47 (jurisdictions), but I’m not going to preside over neglect and denial.”
Montebello’s acting city manager reacted in surprise to that comment.
“I would have hoped the governor would have reached out to us before publicly calling us out,” acting City Manager Paul Talbot said Tuesday. “This is the first I heard about it.”
Talbot said the city, which last turned in its state-required plan in December 2017, is working on revising it. Talbot said new homes are being built and also are planned, including 1,200 new homes in the Montebello hills.
Russ Heimerich, spokesman for the state Department of Business and Consumer Services and Housing Agency, said Montebello has been out of compliance since the early 1990s.
Its plan needs to show there is space for 1,066 new housing units, but Montebello hasn’t, Heimerich said.
The governor’s comments follow four years in which state leaders and analysts have focused on an acute housing shortage – particularly in coastal areas in Southern and Northern California, leading to soaring rents, tenant displacement and home prices that are double the national average.
The state Housing and Community Development Department determined California needs to build at least 180,000 new housing units annually to keep up with the state’s population and job growth.
Last year, California homebuilders took out permits to build just over 116,000 new units – a 12-year high but still woefully below the housing department’s goal.
Tenants rights advocates led a ballot campaign last year to expand rent control laws, but the measure – Proposition 10 – was soundly defeated. Newsom said, nonetheless, the state still needs to pursue some form of rent stabilization.
“The pressures on vulnerable renters didn’t go away after the election,” Newsom said. “We need new rules to stabilize neighborhoods and prevent evictions, without putting small landlords out of business.”
The California Association of Realtors issued a statement Tuesday applauding Newsom’s statements.
“We support the governor’s position that local government needs to be held accountable for addressing housing supply,” CAR President Jared Martin said. Martin also praised Newsom’s comments saying the California Environmental Quality Act needs to be revised to expedite the approval of new homes.
The list of noncompliant cities in Southern California includes:
Los Angeles County: Bell, Bradbury, Claremont, Compton, Covina, Huntington Park, La Habra Heights, La Puente, Maywood, Montebello, Paramount, Pomona, Rolling Hills, South El Monte and Westlake Village.
Inland Empire: Canyon Lake, Desert Hot Springs, Jurupa Valley, Needles and Rialto.
Orange County: Huntington Beach.