Huntington Beach deserves to be in the south.

California has a crippling housing shortage that has driven up house prices and rents, fueled homelessness and driven residents and businesses out of the state. And yet somehow the city’s leaders feel that their wealthy enclave on the Orange County coast should be exempt from producing its fair share of homes.

Of course, the city should not be exempted. It is welcome news that Gov. Gavin Newsom and Atty. General Rob Bonta south of Huntington Beach for violating state housing laws. The lawsuit should serve as a warning to other communities: California is cracking down on cities that try to circumvent new laws aimed at encouraging housing development.

Huntington Beach and other cities are complaining heartily that state legislators are flouting their local control. Indeed, the state has passed ambitious new laws that, among other things, require cities to approve backyard and duplex homes in single-family neighborhoods and issue enforceable plans that dictate where new market-compliant and affordable housing can be built.

However, those laws were passed for a reason because cities did not build homes. For decades, local elected leaders bowed to Not In My Backyard demands to block or restrict housing in the name of preventing traffic or protecting neighborhood character. As a result, the state has not built enough housing to keep up with population growth.

To reduce the deficit and lower prices, California needs 2.5 million additional homes by 2030. But the state

only

only builds about 125,000 units a year. All cities will have to make it easier to build more homes. Even Huntington Beach.

Despite numerous warnings from state officials, the Huntington Beach City Council recently voted to deny applications to build additional housing units or duplexes in single-family zones, banning projects that are legal under state law.

The council also plans to ignore applications filed under the builder’s remedy, a provision of the state law that says housing developers can ignore local zoning laws and make proposals whatever they want in cities that have failed to write a housing plan that meets state requirements. Builders’ renovation projects just need to ensure that 20% of the units are affordable. It’s no surprise that Huntington Beach doesn’t have a compliant housing plan.

Hours after Newsom and Bonta’s announcement, Huntington Beach filed its own lawsuit in federal court, challenging the state’s requirement that the city must make room for more than 13,000 new units over the next few years. The lawsuit accused the state of rampant power play to turn Huntington Beach into a high-density mecca.

Beach city leaders seem more interested in preserving some idealized vision of the suburbs than helping people who live and work in Huntington Beach want more housing options. People like Ty Youngblood, who planned to build an outhouse in his 80-year-old mother’s house so that his family could live with her and take care of her. After paying for engineering and architectural plans, Youngblood said, his project is now stalled.

While Huntington Beach is the most openly resistant to enforcing the state’s housing laws, there are other nasty examples of cities trying to get around their obligations. Officials in Sausalito suggested placing new housing on sites that are under water. Woodside leaders infamously tried to declare the tony bay area community a mountain lion sanctuary to thwart duplex developments. And in La Caada Flintridge, a pastor agreed to list her church as an imaginary place where affordable housing could be built so the city could claim its housing plan complied with state rules.

California’s housing crisis is too serious to tolerate obstruction. So, Newsom and Bonta, continue the righteous fight against NIMBY cities.