The Facts

The California Supreme Court has let stand a ruling ordering Huntington Beach to follow state housing law and adopt a plan that makes room for 13,368 low‑income homes. If the city does not adopt a compliant housing element within 120 days of further trial‑court proceedings, the state can block new building permits. The case began with a 2023 lawsuit in which Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the city for refusing to adopt a state‑compliant housing element and for trying to block SB 9 lot splits and ADUs, according to the governor’s press release.

The Context

State officials have made clear through their housing enforcement unit and lawsuits that the Housing Element Law is not optional: every city must plan and zone for its fair share of homes or face sanctions, including frozen permits and the “builder’s remedy,” as described in a Newsom administration overview of housing element enforcement. Huntington Beach argued that its charter‑city status let it opt out; courts rejected that argument and treated the housing crisis as a statewide concern.

San Francisco is a charter city under the same rules. To keep its own Housing Element in good standing and avoid a Sacramento takeover, the city had to pass an aggressive upzoning package—often called the “family zoning” plan—that legalizes more homes in high‑resource neighborhoods and around transit, as outlined in the Planning Department’s implementing programs.

The GrowSF Take

This ruling is a warning and a roadmap for San Francisco. Courts are backing the state’s power to force reluctant charter cities to plan for housing. That confirms that our new family zoning and broader upzoning weren’t optional experiments—they were necessary to keep control of our own planning and avoid builder’s‑remedy chaos and state sanctions.

Going forward, SF leaders should treat state compliance as the floor, not the ceiling: stay on schedule with zoning changes, don’t water down the Housing Element, and approve projects quickly. If we stall, Sacramento has shown it is willing—and now clearly empowered—to step in.