After years and months of trying to avoid a state mandate on housing requirements imposed by Sacramento, the Huntington Beach City Council reluctantly on Tuesday night voted to approve a “housing element” to the city’s general plan they believe will conform with a requirement to zone for – but not necessarily build – over 13,000 new residences.
The vote was 6-1, with Councilmember Chad Williams dissenting. In a last-minute attempt to delay what other councilmembers regarded as inevitable, he kept offering substitute motions, none of which passed.
Mayor Casey McKeon, citing the mounting amounts of fines – at least $100,000 so far – being imposed on the city for ‘non-compliance,” held out hope that the battle for local control of housing decisions might yet be won at the ballot box in the future…