Carlsbad, CA
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According to the Growth Management Plan, development activity cannot proceed if either the residential growth caps or public facility performance standards are not met. However, updates to state law and the city’s Housing Element have modified these components the plan.
In 2017 the California Legislature passed SB 166, known as the No Net Loss Law, which requires local jurisdictions to ensure that their housing element inventories can accommodate, at all times throughout the planning period, their remaining unmet share of the regional housing need.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development has taken the following positions with respect to Carlsbad:
Failure to meet the Growth Management Program performance standards cannot be used as a basis for implementing a moratorium that precludes meeting Carlsbad’s share of the regional housing need
The Growth Management Program caps on housing cannot prevent the city from achieving consistency with the Housing Element inventory and SB 166. In 2019, the legislature passed SB 330, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, which prohibits local jurisdictions from imposing moratoriums on housing development and using residential housing caps or other limits to regulate the number of housing units built within a jurisdiction.
The state Department of Housing and Community Development considers a housing moratorium adopted due to non-compliance with a Growth Management Program performance standard would not be allowed under SB 330, and the city cannot use the growth cap limits specified in the Growth Management Program to limit or prohibit residential development.
The City Council adopted Resolution No. 2020-208 on October 20, 2020 finding that the moratorium requirements are unenforceable due to state law.
On April 6, 2021 the City adopted Resolution No. 2021-074 finding the city’s residential housing caps contained in the General Plan, Growth Management Program, Council Policy Statement 43, and the city’s municipal zoning code are preempted by state law and unenforceable.
Even though the city can no longer stop development, it can still work to maintain the performance standards in place.