4DCA Division 3 Oral Argument - 2025/11/17 - Nov 17, 2025

argument

4DCA Division 3 Oral Argument - 2025/11/17

California Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Three 3h 10m 1 speaker 8 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What does the court’s opening and case roster look like?

Unknown 0:59

Morning.

Janeta Giovinko 1:01

They're right.

Unknown 7:40

All right for reveal for the country division three.

Justice Moore 7:45

Good morning, everyone.

Justice Moore 7:53

I am Justice Moore. To my right is Justice Delaney and to my left is Justice Scott. We have four matters on calendar this morning, and this panel will preside over all four. The first case is California for homeowners shift versus City of La Habra.

Justice Moore 8:24

And whenever appellants are ready, appellate may proceed.

Matthew Galfand 8:35

Good morning. Matthew Galfand for the appellant, Californians for home ownership. I'd like to reserve three minutes of my time for rebuttal.

Unknown 8:43

All right.

Matthew Galfand 8:43

May I please the court. This is a straightforward case about whether a city can amend its general plan housing element through staff action rather than at an agendized public hearing.

How do the parties frame the housing‑element amendment dispute?

Matthew Galfand 8:54

The answer is no. Because state law requires the changes to a city's general plan. adopted by the city's city council, its legislative body. at a public uh notice public hearing uh on recommendation from the planning commission of the city. But before I get to the technical legal issues in this case, I want to explain why all of this matters. There are two major practical issues that make compliance with these provisions imperative. The first, which will be addressed primarily by counsel for the Amiki in this case, is that there is a need for public engagement prior to adoption of a housing element. The law contemplates significant public review before any general plan housing element is amended. But the degree of public engagement is all the greater for housing elements in particular.

Matthew Galfand 9:45

Um the second uh great need for compliance with these provisions is the need to identify the precise date of adoption for a housing element. There are four reasons why we need to know exactly when a housing element is adopted. The first is that the actual uh date of adoption is the date that the city comes into compliance with housing element law. Uh and the law provides escalating penalties for uh increasingly uh for spending more and more time out of compliance. So it matters that we know when compliance has been achieved. The second is that the date determines the applicable standards that apply to a building project under the state's Housing Accountability Act, which governs the approval of housing development projects.

Matthew Galfand 10:29

The third is a more specific uh uh p aspect of the Housing and Accountability Act, which provides that uh sites listed on a city's housing element. are uh subject to uh particular standards and we have to know when those sites become subject to those standards because a project that comes in before uh the housing element is adopted is subject to different standards than a housing development application that comes in after those standards are uh adopted. And this the fourth and and and a very important one is that the adoption of a housing element triggers statute of limitations, so we have to know when the statute of limitations is triggered, we have to have a public hearing at which organizations like mine can exhaust uh remedies and make arguments about the uh adoption of the housing element.

Matthew Galfand 11:20

Now there is a limited exception in housing element law. To bring claims later than the traditional statute of limitations, but that exception applies only to specific kinds of challenges, not to all challenges to housing elements. As to the uh technical legal issues in this case, there are two ways to frame what the city of Lahabre did in late twenty twenty two. In our view, framed correctly, the city's september twenty twenty two housing element was a final adopted housing element. This city this framing matches the city's own framing in twenty twenty two. The city had become increasingly aware of the penalties that were applying in the city due to its failure to apply uh to adopt its housing element.

Matthew Galfand 12:00

So rather than send a new draft housing element to HCD, the city declared that it had adopted its housing element. The framing also matches certain of the positions the city has taken in this litigation, including the position that the statute of limitations for a challenge to certain aspects of the housing element began running in September of twenty twenty two.