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After losing state housing mandate lawsuit, Huntington Beach could face fines of up to $50,000 a month

May 9, 2026

After losing a long-running court battle to plan for more housing, Huntington Beach could face fines of up to $50,000 a month, dating back to January 2025.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal heard arguments Friday, May 8, from both the city and state regarding the appropriate penalty amount for violating state housing laws, as well as the effective start date for those fines.

Matthew Struhar, the attorney representing the state, said the maximum civil penalty of $50,000 a month, retroactive to the start of last year, would provide the strongest incentive for the city to come into “compliance with the housing element law” while “deterring further violations.”

Huntington Beach’s “outright refusal to adopt a housing element affects real people” in Southern California communities, and the penalties would compensate for “those harms,” Struhar said at Friday’s hearing, and help “finance the development of affordable housing within those cities.”

Late last year, Huntington Beach lost its years-long fight against the state’s housing mandate, as both the state and federal high courts declined to reconsider a lower court’s decision that ordered the city to zone for more housing, including many affordable units.

In December, Bacal gave the city 120 days to release a housing plan that zones for 13,368 units by the end of the decade — the city does not have to build the homes, just have a conducive zoning atmosphere for their development by the free market. The court order also set restrictions on the city’s permitting and rezoning authority in the meantime. In a later ruling, Bacal set the compliance deadline to May 28.

The city has requested a 240-day extension — on top of the 120 days given by the court — to develop a compliant housing element that maps out where and how new housing can be built.

The city will argue its case for an extension in court hearings set over the next couple of months.

Anthony Taylor, an attorney for Huntington Beach, said at Friday’s hearing that the penalty should start with the minimum amount of $10,000 a month and that the “earliest possible date” for the fees to kick in should be June — after the May 28 deadline.

The maximum penalty requested by the state is unreasonable, Taylor said, because the city has been revising its housing element and will “very shortly release” an updated plan. The process takes time, he said, and the city should not be punished for it.

Taylor also pushed back against the state’s argument that Huntington Beach is an “outlier” in failing to meet its share of regional housing needs, noting that only six of 411 jurisdictions updated their housing plans by the given deadline.

Attorney General Rob Bonta first sued Huntington Beach in 2023 for refusing to adopt a compliant housing plan, which was due in October 2021.

In response, the city filed a federal lawsuit against the state, arguing that as a charter city, it is not required to abide by certain state laws — an argument rejected by both a lower court and a federal appeals court. The city has also expressed concern that pushing ahead with more housing construction would run afoul of the California Environmental Quality Act.

Bacal said she’ll issue a ruling on the penalties before the next hearing on May 15.

Orange County Register

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After losing state housing mandate lawsuit, Huntington Beach could face fines of up to $50,000 a month

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