'Poster child for nimbyism': California sues city over lack of affordable housing

[marmar]

California officials are suing Huntington Beach, a wealthy coastal city lambasted by the state’s governor as the “poster child for nimbyism”, in an attempt to force it to build more affordable housing.

Defiant Huntington Beach officials have filed their own lawsuit in response, pledging to fight any attempt by the state to “urbanize” their affluent, majority-white community.

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said the lawsuit was part of the state’s effort to crack down on cities and counties that “that flagrantly violate state housing laws”, and said that a nimby, or “not in my backyard”, attitude towards housing development could not longer be tolerated.

“My administration will take every measure necessary to hold communities accountable for their failure to build their fair share of housing,” Newsom said in a statement.

Huntington Beach is required by state law to approve more affordable housing and to build more than 13,000 new homes over the next eight years, state officials said. Instead, officials accused the Huntington Beach city council of “unlawful and willful attempts to flout state housing law”, including considering a new local ordinance that would attempt to exempt the city from certain state housing requirements. .............(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/10/california-sues-huntington-beach-affordable-housing