Newport - To Surf or Die?

Newport - To Surf or Die?

Clive Summers

May 3, 2020

Newport Beach Defies Governor's Orders © CJN 2020

With another red tide of litigation treading water for seemingly compliant Huntington Beach beachgoers this weekend, Newport Beach was on the beat with surf and sunning.  On Friday the Hunting Beach city council sued the state seeking a “Temporary Restraining Order,” (TRO) to prevent Gov Gavin Newsom from closing the Orange County Beach line, from Huntington to San Clemente.  But the wave of justice didn’t break for Huntington beach-bums, who were left kicking sand at the end of the day with Newsom’s order still standing, and the SOS HB TRO sank.  Yet, while Huntington beaches remain naked and lonesome burning in the sun, Newport Beach arrivals were alive, on shore and “getting tubed.”

The legal riff between Huntington, and Newport Beach for that matter, has been ongoing while Newsom and the state have been attempting to bring more “affordable housing” into local municipalities to reduce the massive homelessness problem California faces.  But Huntington and Newport are not feeling it, which is understandable given the median home price average ticks in well above $ 900,000. Hence, residents  believe they are being held hostage to Sacramento’s, perhaps unrealistic, interest.  Yet, each of these two cities do provide thousands of service industry jobs, in food and beverage, tourism, among countless others.  Yet no workers in any one of those industries could ever afford rent in either Newport or Huntington, unless it was allowable, very inconceivable, within either localities to overcrowd 6 tenants in a 2 bedroom apartment. 

A 2018 law allows the Cali Attorney General to deny beach cities compliance measures to housing and zoning planning unless they shore up on state initiated measures to address the statewide housing crisis, and build state mandated new affordable housing units.  Newport Beach has been comparatively resistant to mandated regional quotas for affordable housing units, and has joined other cities throughout Los Angeles, Imperial, Riverside, Orange, Venture and San Bernardino counties, collectively. 

The zoning of these affordable housing units if being overseen by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and they are seeking to provide 1.3 million new homes across the counties.  But Newport Beach city council members find the task of their meeting the number of units they’d be responsible to procure for the “affordable housing” program untenable, if not impossible given the deadline, among other things.

Meanwhile, as certain of these costal cities fail to be compliant with affordable housing initiatives, Newsome has threatened to hold or delay on various much needed state funds non-compliant cites desperately need. 

Additionally, Huntington Beach has long pushed back on California’s “sanctuary law,” and sued the state in 2018 to make it “exempt” from the “California Values Act,” SB 53, via it’s status as a “charter city.”  That failed recently in April when the California Supreme Court declined to hear the case.  No US federal court intervention has been sought, but HB city council and constituents have intimated further federal remedies may well be on the table soon, if not very likely.