06/02/2026
THE BILL COMES DUE
The MAGAnificent Five promised to fight Sacramento’s housing mandates, “with every fiber of our being.” City Attorney Michael Gates convinced the City Council that his legal theories were a winner. Years of wasted time and effort, and millions of dollars later, and the Council and Michael Gates are losers.
The results are in, and Huntington Beach residents are paying the price. The courts have ordered the city to pay $160,000 in fees, and an additional $50,000 for every month that we fail to update our zoning laws and fulfill our obligations under California’s Housing Element Law. The city has not disclosed how much has been spent in total on legal fees, nor do we know how much the city will be ordered to pay to the State of California for their legal fees, but the final price tag will be millions of dollars.
In addition to the skyrocketing costs of these lawsuits, the City Council will have gotten nothing but delays. Until we update our
zoning code, our ability to restrict the density of new developments is severely limited, and homebuilders could us provisions under “Builder’s Remedy,” to initiate construction of high density, affordable housing projects anywhere in Huntington Beach.
This was avoidable. California’s Housing Element was signed by Gov. Reagan in 1967.
Every credible legal observer cited decades of precedent and urged the council not to humor Gates’s charter city arguments. Not only did they pursue this lawsuit, but they certainly did fight it with every fiber of their being. In the City’s previous housing lawsuit, Huntington Beach was ordered to pay the Kennedy Commission $3.5M in legal fees. The City argued this case across six separate courts, including petitioning the Supreme Court of the United States.
Huntington Beach has refused to estimate how much these lawsuits have cost, but when the bill comes due and California gets reimbursed, it could be more than $5M.
Meanwhile, while Huntington Beach fought this expensive stalling campaign, seniors, working families, and our young adults have paid the price. Exploding rents and housing
costs have driven countless residents from Huntington Beach as the housing shortage intensified. The MAGA Council has not sat idly by; when the Mobile Home Committee brought the dangerous situation seniors were facing to their attention, City Council disbanded the Mobile Home Committee.
A homebuilder tried to build a 4-story senior living facility on a run-down strip mall, and the City Council spent years fighting them, only allowing them to build 3-stories, denying dozens of units. When the homebuilders who brought us 62 low-income senior units needed a tax-exemption that they absolutely qualified for, and which cost the city absolutely nothing, the City Council made them attend a special City Council meeting, where they attempted to shake them down for cash. One homebuilder’s spokesperson that I spoke to expressed that after the hostility
they faced, they never intended to return to Huntington Beach.
THE BILL COMES DUE
Millions of dollars that could have been spent on our parks, libraries, roads, first responders, and more were wasted to indulge Gates’s legal fantasies, and the demands of political donors like Brian Thienes, who is now running for City Council.
This legal campaign is delusional, reckless, and misguided. It is time for the City Council to come to their senses, abide by California law, and make the reforms necessary to comply with the Housing Element.
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