La Cañada Flintridge – 600 Foothill Blvd
La Canada Flintridge, a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles, has violated state law by refusing to approve construction of an 80-unit apartment complex that set aside 20% of its units as affordable. Our lawsuit aims to bring the City into compliance with state law, and ensure the project can proceed. Background on La Cañada Flintridge: La Cañada Flintridge, also known on the City’s website as “the glen on the hill”, incorporated in 1976 by joining two communities to avoid being subsumed by Pasadena and Glendale. Today LCF is 59.9% white, with a median household income of $187,384, and homes in the city sell for a median price of $2.7 million. The city has a history of exclusion: its population has remained stagnant since its incorporation, while the County population has increased by around 30% in the same time period. But La Cañada Flintridge’s exclusion was not all left in the past. In 2017 conversations about building new multifamily housing in the city, one of the former Planning Commissioners, Herand Der Sarkissian, was quoted saying “People like people of their own tribe… I think the attempt to change it is ludicrous. Be it black, be it white. People want to be with people who are like them.” This mindset is quite evident in the city’s eight year battle with development at 600 Foothill Boulevard. The Case: La Cañada Flintridge failed to update its housing element by the October 2022 deadline for Southern California cities, leaving it subject to Builder’s Remedy project proposals. Builder’s Remedy is a mechanism established by the Housing Accountability Act that requires cities with noncompliant housing elements to approve all development proposals with either 20% low income units, or 100% moderate income units. Noting the city’s noncompliant housing element, the 600 Foothill Boulevard Builder’s Remedy project- a five-story, 80 unit mixed-use housing development proposal- was submitted. Despite their obligation to approve the project, La Cañada Flintridge’s City Council rejected the proposal on May 1, 2023, arguing that the project was invalid because the city’s housing element was in compliance in November when the proposal was submitted. We sent the city a letter informing them of their breach of state laws, yet they still refuse to approve the project. La Cañada Flintridge’s argument against the proposed development is simply false. The city does not have a compliant housing element to date, and is therefore obligated to approve Builder’s Remedy projects. La Cañada Flintridge did adopt a housing element on February 21, 2023, but HCD deemed it out of compliance with state requirements. Even if the city’s February housing element was compliant, the Builder’s Remedy proposal was submitted well before then on November 10, 2022, meaning that it should have been approved. The city’s entire argument for blocking this project depends on backdating their housing element, despite the fact that the housing element they adopted is still out of compliance. So in addition to adopting a noncompliant housing element, La Cañada Flintridge is trying to backdate its date of adoption from February to October, which is when they submitted their initial noncompliant draft. HCD has already stated that cities cannot backdate their housing element adoption dates, and even if they could, La Cañada Flintridge’s housing element is still not in compliance anyway. To this day, the city cannot legally reject Builder’s Remedy projects. Read this article to learn more about the specifics of the near decade long efforts to develop at 600 Foothill Boulevard. Update: On Friday, March 1st, 2024, the Court held a four hour hearing to decide the fate of our lawsuit and the developer’s separate lawsuit. The Court ruled in our favor on nearly every claim, overturning the city’s denial of the project and ordering the city to process the application in accordance with the builder’s remedy. This is the first victory in court for a builder’s remedy project ever, and will pave the way for other similar projects throughout the state.
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Documents in this case
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