We have filed lawsuits against South Pasadena and Irvine for refusing to provide records about their housing policies.
Our Commitment to Public Records Law
The California Public Records Act gives Californians broad access to the records of public agencies throughout the state, including city and county governments. We regularly use this law to investigate housing-related conduct by local governments, especially when the documents and policies published by a local government don't provide enough information to determine whether the agency is complying with state law. For example, we used public records requests to learn about an unwritten policy on accessory dwelling units that was being enforced by the City of Coronado, and we sued to end that policy.
We are committed to ensuring that this law is enforced and that the public has access to important housing-related records from local government agencies, including through litigation when necessary.
Our Lawsuits
Californians for Homeownership v. City of South Pasadena
Our lawsuit against South Pasadena relates to the development of its “housing element,” a state-mandated plan for addressing housing needs within the city. Every housing element is required to identify sites where housing is likely to be developed over the next eight years. But South Pasadena has received widespread criticism for its draft list of sites, which includes sites unlikely to ever be redeveloped with housing.
Californians for Homeownership began investigating the development of the city’s housing element in 2020, and sent the city several public records requests as part of that investigation. The city produced some responsive records, but withheld most of them, claiming that the public interest is best served by keeping the city’s internal process for developing its housing element secret. These records are vitally important to allow residents, nonprofit organizations, and the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to assess the city’s sites list with the benefit of all the same information that the city has about the sites it has listed.
Click here to view a copy of our Petition for Writ of Mandate against the City of South Pasadena.
Californians for Homeownership v. City of Irvine
Our lawsuit against Irvine relates to the City’s policies governing accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. To learn more about state ADU law, click here. Despite being broadly popular with homeowners, these ADU laws have faced opposition from some local government officials, including in Irvine.
Irvine originally planned to pass a local ordinance that would have limited ADUs in defiance of state law, but backed down after Californians for Homeownership threatened litigation and HCD told the city that its proposed ordinance was invalid. Without a local ordinance, Irvine is required to apply permissive state law standards for ADUs. Instead, we learned that the city’s staff had developed a secret internal memo that they were using to apply stricter, illegal standards to ADUs. In response to a public records request, the city released the memo itself, but withheld documents about its development and whether it was authorized by the city’s policymakers. These documents are important to determine whether and in what ways the city is illegally regulating ADUs.
Click here to view a copy of our Petition for Writ of Mandate against the City of Irvine.