Redondo Beach’s Housing Element Failed. Now a Developer Is Planning 2,300 Residential Units.

Garth Meyer reports for Easy Reader on a notable departure from an anti-development tradition in the Southern California beach town of Redondo Beach, where a developer has proposed the development of 2,300 residential units, hotels, and offices on a 50-acre site that formerly housed an AES power plant.

The development proposal is made possible by state laws requiring local governments to make accommodations for allotted housing construction in the local housing element of the general plan through the every-eight-years process called the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA). As documented by Diana Ionescu for Planetizen in April 2022, the state's Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) has a new mandate to enforce the requirements for local governments to complete a new housing element every eight years, enacted by a state law approved in 1969.

Redondo Beach was one of a handful of cities to run afoul of HCD regulators by under-planning for new housing—a club that includes nearby Los Angeles and Santa Monica (although Los Angeles has since rectified its position with state regulators). Nowadays, failing the RHNA test comes with the consequence of losing local control over some land use approvals. Redondo Beach is currently discovering the consequences of their inaction.

More details on the proposed development and the state laws that precipitated this historic moment in Redondo Beach and California development history can be found in an article by Steven Sharp for Urbanize LA. “Pustilnikov is also pursuing vesting rights under SB 330, which would preserve his ability to develop the property in the event that the City of Redondo Beach is able to obtain state certification of its housing element,” adds Sharp.

More on California's crackdown on housing scofflaws can be found in this August editorial published by the Los Angeles Times.