Water Damage Restoration in Huntington Beach, CA

What you need to know: The federal court of appeals today denied Huntington Beach’s NIMBY attempt to sue the state for enforcing state law that requires the city to build its fair share of housing. California will continue to hold the city accountable and ensure that it builds the housing its community deserves.

SACRAMENTO — In March 2023, the state sued Huntington Beach for violating various state housing laws. The city retaliated by suing the state in federal court, arguing that enforcing California’s laws requiring cities to build more housing was unconstitutional. Today the Ninth Circuit affirmed the trial court in rejecting Huntington Beach’s NIMBY lawsuit.

“Today, yet another court has slapped down Huntington Beach’s cynical attempt to prevent the state from enforcing our housing laws. Huntington Beach officials’ continued efforts to advance plainly unlawful NIMBY policies are failing their own citizens — by wasting time and taxpayer dollars that could be used to create much-needed housing. No more excuses — every city must follow state law and do its part to build more housing.”

Governor Gavin Newsom

“I am pleased that yet another court has emphatically rejected Huntington Beach’s attempt to exempt itself from state housing laws,” said Attorney General Bonta. “While the City has been wasting the public’s time and money pursuing this meritless lawsuit, its neighboring communities — along with every Californian struggling to keep a roof over their heads or wondering where they’re going to sleep tonight — need Huntington Beach to step up and adopt a housing plan without further delay. My office will continue pursuing all remedies in the state case against the City, where the court has already determined the City violated the state’s Housing Element Law.”

Today, California secured a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirming the district court’s dismissal of the City of Huntington Beach’s federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of enforcing state housing laws.

In 2023, the Governor announced that California was suing the city, arguing that the city is in violation of the state Housing Element Law and seeking both penalties and injunctive relief.

A copy of the decision can be found here.

Huntington Beach lost its primary lawsuit against California’s housing mandates in federal appeals court today after the Ninth Circuit Court issued a ruling that they didn’t have the power to sue the state.

The lawsuit has been ongoing since March 9, 2023, when city council members and Gov. Gavin Newsom announced competing lawsuits against one another on the same day, debating whether or not the city needed to have a state approved housing development plan.

[Read: California’s Battle With Huntington Beach Over Housing Goals Heads To Court]

While Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the city in state court to compel them to adopt a housing plan, HB City Attorney Michael Gates sued back in federal court, claiming that charter cities like Surf City were not bound by regular state laws.

It was an argument the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with in their ruling, who agreed with another ruling by U.S. District Judge Fred Slaughter, who threw the case out last year, arguing the city didn’t have standing to sue the state on this issue.

[Read: Federal Judge Tosses Surf City Lawsuit Against CA Housing Mandate]

“We are not persuaded by the City’s effort,” the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judges wrote in their Wednesday ruling. “No matter how California categorizes charter cities, they remain subordinate political bodies, not sovereign entities.”

To read the full ruling, click here.

Gates has also lost in state court against Bonta, with San Diego Superior Court Judge Katherine Bacal requiring the city to write a new plan for housing.

[Read: Huntington Beach Loses Housing Mandate Lawsuit Against California]

In a Wednesday interview, Gates said the decision was “not particularly surprising,” and said he would be asking the Ninth Circuit to do a second review.

If that review is denied, he plans to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which he says city council members have already told him they want.

“City Council has made it pretty clear we’ll take this all the way to the Supreme Court,” Gates said. “That’s their intent so I know that’s an option.”

In a news release Wednesday evening, Bonta praised the decision by the court.

“I am pleased that yet another court has emphatically rejected Huntington Beach’s attempt to exempt itself from state housing laws,” Bonta said. “While the City has been wasting the public’s time and money pursuing this meritless lawsuit, its neighboring communities — along with every Californian struggling to keep a roof over their heads or wondering where they’re going to sleep tonight — need Huntington Beach to step up and adopt a housing plan without further delay.”

In a post on X, Newsom’s office had a short comment on the ruling. “No more excuses,” Newsom’s governor account posted. “Every city must follow state law and do its part to build more housing.”

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.

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Oct. 22, 2024 4:19 PM PT

For more than a week straight, photographers, scientists and adventure seekers alike have captured dazzling images of an electric blue light emitting from Southern California’s waves at night.

The display of bioluminescence, created when a type of algae is agitated, is difficult to forecast, but over the last nine days, Californians have shared videos and photos of the phenomenon from San Diego to Point Mugu and several other locations in between.

On Monday night, photographer Patrick Coyne went to Marina del Rey, where he saw the brightest bioluminescent waters he said he’s ever experienced — quite a feat considering he’s been chasing the neon blue waves since 2018.

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“Last night was so unbelievably bright that my iPhone was picking it up more than it ever has,” Coyne, 30, said. He said he’s been out at area beaches eight of the last nine nights, documenting waves crashing neon blue, surfers lighted up along the swells and the water glowing as he waded along the shore.

Coyne has amassed a large online following from his striking photos and videos, but also his willingness — and dedication — to find and share when and where the bioluminescence light shows are on display. Once he posts where he’s spotted the electrifying waves, dozens of followers soon join him at the spot, he said.

“I love showing people this phenomenon. … It feels like magic,” he said.

And for those who haven’t yet seen bright blue ocean, it might not be too late.

“We really don’t know; Mother Nature kind of decides when it shows up and when it doesn’t,” Coyne said, who estimated that he’s seen probably 300 occurrences over the last six years.

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But he’s also struck out many more times.

“I have been out hundreds on hundreds on hundreds of time looking for it,” he said. But he’s feeling good about Tuesday night’s odds.

“If I was guessing, I think it will be there tonight — but I’ve been burned in the past,” he said. “It’s so random.”

Given the intensity of the glow he saw Monday night and the long streak already recorded, he expects there will still be enough of the microscopic algae — called dinoflagellates — that emit the bioluminescent glow somewhere along Southern California’s coast. During the day, those dinoflagellates cast a rusty hue across the ocean — often called a “red tide” — which sky cameras on Tuesday captured around the Santa Monica Pier. That strong showing also bodes well for more nights with bioluminescence.

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But red tides — and coordinating biolumenescence — are unpredictable and quite fickle, according to UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They can last just one day or many, and their scope can stretch across hundreds of miles or be more localized.

“Previous events have lasted anywhere from one week to a month or more,” according to Scripps researchers. “There is no way to predict how long they will last.”

In 2020, the region saw a particularly long stretch of the spectacle over several weeks. It’s not yet clear how long this one will last.

“We have recently had dinoflagellate blooms up and down the California coast,” Clarissa Anderson, a biological oceanographer at Scripps and director of the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System, said last week. “I am seeing plenty of Lingulodinium polyedra and Tripos furca the last few days — both are producers of the bioluminescence light shows we are seeing.”

Last week, a UC San Diego photographer captured dolphins gliding through blue, glowing waters.

The dinoflagellates known as Lingulodinium polyedra use bioluminescence to avoid predators by either scaring off hungry sea creatures or calling attention to their location, which draws the predators’ predators, experts have said.

Researchers are still working to better understand how these algae blooms affect ocean life and humans. There’s no public health warning associated with the events, but some people have reported health effects from the red tide.