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Newport Beach must comply with housing laws, whether NIMBYs like it or not

November 27, 2025

Newport Beach NIMBYs should’ve taken heed of Huntington Beach’s courtroom failures before pushing an anti-housing ballot measure onto the Nov. 2026 ballot.

Here’s the story.

In July 2024, the Newport Beach City Council approved amendments to the city’s general plan to allow 8,174 new housing units to be constructed to satisfy state housing mandates and allow for an extra “buffer” of housing units above what those mandates required.

“The California Department of Housing and Community Development was with us the whole time,” Councilman Eric Weigand told us of the council-approved plan. “In fact, we had many times during the process where they said, ‘No, this plan does not satisfy the requirements.’”

The city was then sued by local NIMBYs, arguing the plan needed to go before voters for approval, prompting the state to file briefs in support of the city’s housing element in May 2025.

In June, a judge upheld the city’s plan, ruling that what the NIMBYs wanted conflicted with state housing laws.

Amid the failure of litigation to halt the city plan, as Voice of OC reported, “Mayor Marshall ‘Duffy’ Duffield and local organizations collected nearly 9,000 signatures” for a measure to replace the council’s plan with a new and more restrictive plan allowing 2,900 new units.

The measure will go before voters on the Nov. 5, 2026 ballot. Whether it is approved by voters or not, there’s reason to believe the measure will be struck down by the courts anyway.

The Newport Beach measure is similar to Surf City’s efforts to avoid state-required housing mandates. On Sept. 11, in Kennedy Commission v. City of Huntington Beach a state appeals court said the city had been dragging its feet since 2021. It gave the city 120 days to adopt an adequate housing plan, and noted, “The provisional remedies are also crucial to cure a city’s violations and effectuate the state’s housing laws.”

Huntington Beach faces the prospect of a court-appointed receiver taking over the city’s housing powers if it doesn’t get its act together.

We hope voters in Newport Beach are paying attention. Passage of the NIMBY plan will only mean years of court battles, paid for by taxpayers, that will inevitably end in defeat.

Orange County Register

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Newport Beach must comply with housing laws, whether NIMBYs like it or not

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