Half Moon Bay among 15 cities Newsom gave “final warning” over housing law violations

By John Ramos

The deadline for cities to submit their plans for building more housing has come and gone, and last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom gave what he called a “final warning” to 15 cities that are not yet in compliance. One of them, the only one in the Bay Area, was Half Moon Bay.

It’s important to know that there has been some construction in Half Moon Bay. The neighborhood of modular homes known as Stone Pine Cove was recently completed to house low-income farmworkers.  

But to the state, rules are rules, and last month when Half Moon Bay submitted their housing element, they got back a letter from the Department of Housing and Community Development pointing out that the city had not completed rezoning the properties in their plan saying, “…the housing element is out of compliance and will remain out of compliance until the rezones have been completed.”

That kind of thing, happening across the state, has caused Newsom to lose his patience.

“If you have cities like L.A. that are violating state law, SB 79, I mean, if you don’t build, we’re not going to fund, period,” he said.  “We had to file 15 lawsuits today, as it relates to notices of violation under the housing element, because people were out of their housing compliance. Enough.”

The governor’s announcement said the 15 communities are more than two years behind schedule and “lack a path to compliance within 60 days, indicating noncompliance and a lack of intent to adhere to state housing law.”  

Half Moon Bay said it has not received any lawsuit yet, but they are taking Newsom’s “final warning” seriously. On Sunday, city manager Matthew Chidester said they are a small city with a unique problem.

“We’re one of only two cities in California that are completely within the Coastal Zone,” he said. “And so that means everything we do when it comes to land use has Coastal Commission requirements. And in this case, those rezonings ultimately have to go to the Coastal Commission for certifications. So, it extends our timelines out quite a bit.”

Chidester says they are working on the rezoning now, but with the bureaucratic delays, they don’t expect to complete the job until sometime in October.  

Newsom has given the 15 cities 60 days to come into compliance, so it’s hard to say if they will get any more slack from the state.  But some of the obstacles to growth in Half Moon Bay are self-imposed.  

Chidester said in 1998, a citizen-led initiative called Measure D limited new housing starts to between 1 and 1.5% growth of the population.  

He said, so far, that allocation hasn’t been a problem, but with the growing number of requests for ADU units, any large development could run afoul of that law.

“The city did not create this, but we are bound by it,” said Chidester. “That was a big portion of the delay,” he said, as HCD and the Coastal Commission considered the legality of Measure D, in relation to state housing law. “Ultimately, I think it will have to go back to the voters. And really, the voters will have to decide if they want to take that up.”

One contentious project is at 555 Kelly St. A five-story housing complex has been planned for a parcel containing a single-family house to provide homes for retired and elderly farm workers. The project has dragged on for four years, and Belinda Hernandez-Arriaga, founder of a farmworker advocacy group called ALAS, said the problem at 555 Kelly rests at the local level.

“We won the bid, and now it’s just been stalled,” she said. “It’s been really hard to get this going. This has to be done. And it takes political will. It takes the community coming together and it takes pushing through agendas to make this happen, and that’s what we’re waiting for here in Half Moon Bay.”

In the meantime, the city risks not just lawsuits, fines, and the loss of state grant funding. They also risk being subject to the dreaded “builders’ remedy” that would remove all local control over land use decisions, rendering their power to make zoning decisions for affordable housing projects meaningless.