Attorney General Bonta: City of Goleta Unlawfully Rejected Affordable Housing Application

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today filed an amicus brief in the Santa Barbara County Superior Court in support of a proposed affordable housing project in Goleta. Located in Santa Barbara County, Goleta is experiencing an acute housing shortage, and approximately 75% of lower-income renter households and 64% of lower-income owner households in Goleta are spending more than 30% of their income on housing. Housing is generally considered unaffordable when more than 30% of a household’s income goes toward housing costs. A housing development project by the Shelby Family Partnership would create 56 single-family homes, 13 of which would be affordable to lower-income households. On December 5, 2023, Goleta unlawfully refused to accept a preliminary application that simply sought to add the aforementioned affordable homes to the housing project under the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 (Senate Bill 330). The land at issue is not productive agriculturally and is surrounded on all sides by existing homes and residentially zoned land.  

“Goleta’s refusal to accept an application that would add desperately-needed affordable housing is both deeply disappointing and unlawful,” said Attorney General Bonta. “As I’ve said many times before, no city or county alone will be able to solve our state’s housing crisis, but they all can and must do something. We respectfully urge the Santa Barbara County Superior Court to order Goleta to process this application and allow the affordable housing project to move forward.”

Two state laws are the focus of Attorney General Bonta’s amicus brief: Senate Bill 330 and the Housing Accountability Act (HAA). Authored by Senator Skinner (D-Berkeley), Senate Bill 330 was intended to boost housing production by, among other things, curtailing a city’s ability to stymie housing projects and allowing anyone trying to build housing to “freeze” the standards applicable to their project by submitting a preliminary application. The HAA provides that a local government shall not disapprove qualifying housing development projects, except in narrowly defined circumstances and after making specific written findings.

In today’s amicus brief, Attorney General Bonta argues that:

• In violation of Senate Bill 330, Goleta refused to accept the Shelby Family Partnership’s preliminary application on the grounds that Senate Bill 330 only applies to “new” projects. While Goleta was out of Housing Element compliance in 2023, the Shelby Family Partnership amended its previous preliminary application to include 13 affordable homes for lower-income households. Attorney General Bonta makes clear that Senate Bill 330 is not limited to only “new” development projects, nor does it foreclose applicants from amending their project to avail itself of its protections.
• In violation of Senate Bill 330, Goleta further claims that if it accepts the preliminary application, then the Shelby Family Partnership will forfeit the approval it obtained of a tentative tract map in 2011. Tentative tract maps are important because they remove any uncertainty as to the land’s development potential for housing. Forcing the Shelby Family Partnership to choose between retaining their vested property rights under the 2011 tentative tract map or vesting under Senate Bill 330, when no such quandary was ever contemplated by the California Legislature in enacting Senate Bill 330, is exactly the kind of mid-stream alteration of applicable standards the California Legislature intended to prohibit.
• In violation of the HAA, Goleta stated that it was “returning” the preliminary application without further explanation. The City could only disapprove of the housing project if it determined in writing that one of the narrow class of HAA exemptions applies, and its findings must be based upon a preponderance of the evidence. 

A copy of the amicus brief can be found here.