Half Moon Bay housing plans still up in the air amid state lawsuit

On Tuesday, the Half Moon Bay City Council met to decide whether an affordable housing complex for farm laborers, which had already been approved, should be put up to a vote of the people. It was happening at the same time the State of California is suing the city for not completing its housing plans in a timely fashion.

The area has some unique challenges when it comes to creating more homes, and now it looks like just about everyone is digging in their heels when it comes to housing.

The city of Half Moon Bay has a small-town feel, and that's how residents would like it to stay. In 1999, voters passed Measure D, limiting the number of new housing builds to just 1% per year. So, they haven't been very quick to embrace growth. Gov. Gavin Newsom warned the city in March to get its housing element completed, and last week, Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a lawsuit against five California cities, with Half Moon Bay at the top of the list.

"The super-majority are in compliance. These five that we are suing today are outliers. They are scofflaws," said Bonta. "They have missed deadlines by 3½ years or more. 3½ years! And after multiple opportunities to correct course, they have continued to choose to not comply. This culture of delay is unacceptable. We are done with delays. We are demanding accountability and compliance."

Half Moon Bay City Manager Matthew Chidester seems genuinely surprised by the lawsuit, saying the city has worked with the state Housing and Community Development Department (HCD) to create an approved timeline for compliance. He pointed to a project at the corner of Main and Metzgar streets that will create 52 new affordable units. But because the city has not yet rezoned all the identified locations, they have not technically completed the element.

"We are out of compliance right now," Chidester acknowledged. "And so, I think legally they have the right to do it. We were just surprised and disappointed because there's a path and a timeline that we worked through with HCD and they understood the steps we had to take, working with them and the Coastal Commission to get our rezonings completed. And we don't know, maybe that information was never shared with the governor's office. I'm not sure."

Chidester said dealing with the California Coastal Commission adds another entire layer of bureaucracy to the process. The powerful agency is known for taking a long time - often up to a year - to make decisions. So much so that Newsom just last week signed a law that would impose deadlines on them to make up their minds. 

David Deerson, a housing attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, said he doesn't envy the city's plight.

"With Half Moon Bay, which will need to have its [Local Coastal Plan] provisions certified, they're certainly caught between a rock and a hard place in these conflicting state regulatory bodies," said Deerson. "[The California Coastal Commission] have got such broad authority and are taking all of it and really ignoring the spirit of state housing reforms."

The lawsuit is demanding the five named cities complete their housing elements within 120 days. But Chidester said Half Moon Bay's is expected to be completed in about six weeks. At this point, staff is scrambling to get its element certified, dealing with bureaucratic delays from the state, while navigating restrictions put on them by their own residents - and at the same time having the governor sue them and accuse them of "sitting on their hands."

"It's been a major focus of our work for almost four years," said Chidester. "So, we've done anything but sit on our hands or refuse to comply. So, we just don't think those statements actually apply to us. Are we out of compliance? Yes. Do we have a path to completion? Yes. We're hoping that those things can be taken into consideration."