CA Governor Gavin Newsom (Screenshot)
Governor Newsom Threatens Lawsuits Against 15 Cities and Counties Over Housing Mandates
Newsom: ‘Every community needs to address homelessness and create new, affordable housing — period, full stop’
By Megan Barth, March 26, 2026 8:22 am
Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Wednesday that California is prepared to file lawsuits against 15 cities and counties for failing to comply with state housing mandates, issuing final warnings and threatening legal action if they do not comply within 30 days.
The move comes just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Huntington Beach’s appeal in its long-running fight to preserve local control over housing development – a defeat chronicled by The California Globe as yet another blow to charter cities resisting Sacramento’s top-down mandates.
In the video accompanying his post, Newsom stood at a podium flanked by service corps members and declared that non-compliant jurisdictions would face lawsuits from the state. The 15 entities receiving notices are: Atwater, Avenal, California City, Corcoran, Escalon, Half Moon Bay, Hanford, Kings County, Lemoore, Merced County, Montclair, Oakdale, Patterson, Ridgecrest, and Turlock.
“If local governments fail to respond in the next 30 days, the state of California will go to court to make sure they follow the law,” Newsom posted. “Every community needs to address homelessness and create new, affordable housing — period, full stop.”
I'm issuing final warnings to 15 cities and counties for breaking state housing law:
Atwater
Avenal
California City
Corcoran
Escalon
Half Moon Bay
Hanford
Kings County
Lemoore
Merced County
Montclair
Oakdale
Patterson
Ridgecrest
Turlock pic.twitter.com/CzH9Gfuv3r— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) March 25, 2026
Notably missing from the list is Marin County. As we reported, Newsom’s home county of Marin is enjoying a moratorium on affordable housing building requirements until 2028. Dan Walters of the Fresno Bee noted, “For at least another decade, therefore, Marin’s residents can smugly assume that their bucolic lifestyles will not be marred by having more neighbors who don’t make as much money and, you know, just don’t fit in.”
The enforcement action stems from the state Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and targets cities and counties that have allegedly fallen short on their “housing elements” – state-required plans mandating zoning for affordable units across all income levels.
This latest crackdown builds on a broader suite of state laws overriding local zoning, including SB 79 (Wiener-D), the “Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act.” Signed by Governor Newsom on October 10, 2025, and set to take full effect on July 1, 2026, SB 79 applies primarily to eight “urban transit counties” with significant rail infrastructure (Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, Alameda, and Sacramento).
The bill overrides local zoning restrictions in designated areas to make higher-density, multi-family housing an “allowed use” near major public transit stops. It aims to accelerate housing production in transit-rich locations, reduce vehicle miles traveled, support public transit ridership, and address the state’s housing shortage by promoting transit-oriented development
Failure to adequately plan and rezone — including accommodating laws like SB 79 — triggers HCD notices, builder’s remedies, funding losses, and lawsuits from Attorney General Rob Bonta.
This isn’t Newsom’s first rodeo.
The California Globe has repeatedly documented the governor’s aggressive campaign against local governments that dare push back.
Most notably, in February 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Huntington Beach’s appeal, upholding lower court rulings that dismissed the city’s lawsuit challenging the state’s housing mandates. As a charter city, Huntington Beach had argued it retained authority over municipal land-use decisions, but the high court’s denial forced the city to adopt a compliant housing element within roughly 120 days and zone for more than 13,000 new units.
Our earlier coverage exposed how Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta celebrated a “major win” in December 2025 after prevailing in the Huntington Beach case, with city councilmembers and local leaders decrying the erosion of local control.
The pattern is clear: Sacramento sues, courts side with the state, and cities either capitulate or face mounting legal bills funded by taxpayers.
Critics, including Huntington Beach officials and conservative lawmakers, have long argued these mandates — and layered laws like SB 79 — ignore practical realities such as skyrocketing construction costs, environmental constraints, infrastructure deficits, and the fact that billions in state spending on homelessness have produced more tents, not homes.
Despite Newsom’s $37 billion-plus homelessness budget (boondoggle), official counts show the crisis worsening, with audits revealing poor tracking, missing funds, and little accountability.
In 2019 when Governor Newsom took office, California had roughly 134,000 homeless people living on the streets, amounting to one-quarter of the nation’s total homeless population. He managed to increase the “unhoused” population to nearly 350,000– the size of California’s 11th largest city.
Yet Newsom’s latest announcement frames non-compliant localities as the villains, even as his own policies — heavy regulation, CEQA abuse, and tax-and-spend governance — have driven housing costs into the stratosphere and prompted a net exodus of Californians.
Cities on today’s list span the state, from the Central Valley to the coast, many already grappling with their own fiscal pressures and resident opposition to high-density, low-income projects that strain schools, roads, and public safety.
As one Huntington Beach leader noted in prior Globe reporting, the state’s “one-size-fits-all” approach tramples charter city rights enshrined in the California Constitution.
Today’s warnings suggest Newsom is undeterred by that precedent — or by the mounting evidence that his housing crusade has done more to enrich developers and bureaucrats than to deliver actual affordable homes.
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If I am not mistaken, most if not all of these counties are “red” counties.
Half Moon Bay is one of the bluest cities in San Mateo County.
Seems to me, the real story is 15 cities and counties have stood their ground and rejected the state mandate. That is called fighting back. Some may forego the highway funds rather than give in. Newsom announcing this is not a “win” but a clear failure in leadership. The problem is not the cities, it’s Newsom’s policies.
Maybe city and county leaders in the cities and counties who are being sued should countersue Newsom and bucolic Marin County for being exempted from those affordable housing mandates and for receiving preferential treatment? Marin County is where Gov. Newsom lives in a luxurious multi-million dollar mansion and it’s one of the wealthiest counties in the state with a median home price of $1.9 million dollars. It also has one of the highest Democrat voter registrations in the state. Marin County is in dire need of low income affordable housing!
There are other communities dominated by wealthy Democrats in California that don’t have any low-income or affordable housing. Take for example the town of Hillsborough in San Mateo County that is filled with multi-million dollar mansions and estates. Hillsborough has a median home price of $5.4 million and a median listing price of $7.05 million. Hillsborough’s zoning and subdivision ordinances require a 2,500-square-foot minimum house size and minimum lot size of 0.5 acres. As a result, there are NO apartments, condominiums or townhouses within the city limits. Since Hillsborough is mostly dominated by wealthy registered Democrats, Gov. Newsom, AG Rob Bonta and their bureaucrat enforcers from the Department of Housing and Community Development are unlikely to ever demand that Hillsborough build low-income affordable housing?
I agree TJ. Sue the state over the Marin County NIMBY exemption.
I’m with you both in wanting to see countersuits for these outrageous Newsom mandates which are only meant to stick it to sensible cities and counties, apparently for sport.
By the way, the word on the street is that Newsom himself was responsible —- through various manipulations during his stint as Lt. Governor —- for the Marin County exemption until 2028.
California City. I don’t know what it’s like now, but the “fountain” in the 1980s was dry and full of blow sand and tumbleweeds and perfectly representative of the city at the time, I can’t imagine a push for “affordable housing” in that place, it would be like mandating “affordible housing” in San Bernardino County unincorporated Lucerne Valley. There was a joke at the time about “down the road” from California City unincorporated town of Boron about how to tell the age of a female Boron resident: “count the tatoos and multiply by the number of missing teeth.” Yeah, build some “affordable housing there too. The joke about Lucerne Valley at the time was ” it’s the water.”
Good grief, these are all tiny cities in remote parts of California. When much of the housing n these small remote communities is already “affordable”. None of these are exactly the urban meth and fentanyl centers driving the bulk of downtown California “homelessness. This is political theater of the absurd, Gavin.
Buy up abandoned Trona, CA Newsom and creat a lock down work camp for all street vagrants. Run them all through your million dollars “Care Courts” and get them off the streets, as of yesterday .
Trona. During the earlier years of WWII NOTS (Naval Ordinance Test Station), maybe early1960s NWC (Naval Weapons Center), later NAWS (Naval Air Weapons Station), and God knows what is called now, Trona, courtesy of Kerr McGee and Stauffer, was the place for residents of China Lake and Ridgecrest prior to 1960 to dance and party. God knows why, but drive through poison canyon and past fish rock and the pinnicles into Searles Valley, and it was fun city at the time. By 1980 Trona was fast going to hell, (it seemed half the population was from the same Oklahoma county and the other half were bikers from who knows where) and by 2000 (as I recall) the area was like a lunar landscape with deteriorated buildings, rusting pieces of heavy equipment and the stench from the mineral rich dry lake along with white product from the chemical plant dusting everything. The high school football field in the 70s was dirt (first hand knowledge) as was the golf course. There was a prevelant “snow king” in residence in 1981, and a major San Bernardino County drug dealer fled from Trona in 1983 to a rental north of Inyokern when the law got too hot before bugging out after it was leaked the Kern County Sheriff’s department was conducting an investigation on him at the property. But build a work camp for “vagrants” in Trona? I think that’s a fever dream that will never get past wishfull fantasy.
The drug dealer from San Bernardino County town of Trona who fled Trona after the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s investigators got up his posterior and subsequently was dealing from the north of Kern County town of Inyokern west of Brown Road had something like 120 cars a day in and out of the place, and one of the associates scared the hell out of the scattered neighbors by his vibes. The dealer and his associates bugged out of the rental to who knows where (maybe Inyo County?) after a Kern County Sheriff’s employee in Ridgecrest tipped off the dealer and blew the detective’s investigation. More recently, a small town police dispatcher in Riverside County had ties to a biker gang, that person is probably long retired by now. Ever wonder how criminal empires are managed by solitary confinement prisoners, or how drugs, cash and cell phones get into and stay in jails and prisons?
Half Moon Bay is hardly in a remote part of California. Every sunny weekend, half of the bay area goes to the beach there.
If you go to the HCA website and bring up the dashboard the information stops at 2021. Is Newsom relying on old data or new data that the public doesn’t have access to? In addition, would the new data include the rebuilding needs from the January 2025 fires in Souhtern California?
The Democraps goal is to destroy every city and county in the state…except Marin County where Gov. Braindead lives.
Gavin Newsom and his intractable hypocrisy playing Mr. Tough Guy again is as annoying and fake and full of it as usual. Here he is, Mr. Showman, pointlessly doubling down on what he knows doesn’t work. But have we ever for one moment expected anything different from this guy? For one thing, a normal person would be embarrassed about exempting Marin County, where he and his super-wealthy homies are comfortably ensconced, but Noooooo. He acquired immunity to embarrassment and shame a long long long long time ago. And why is he not in handcuffs at this point in time, may I ask?
I cannot wait to see the backside of this pompous horse’s ass and Worst Governor Ever walking away from Sacramento and the Gov’s office, and it is my sincerest wish and hope that when it finally happens, he will never, ever, NEVER darken our door again.. Go away, go far away, Gavin. Please, we’re begging you! Enjoy your liquor elsewhere, okay? GAH
Newsom is so annoyingly fake and he’s anything but Mr. Tough Guy. California Post reported that Newsom teared up and shed some fake crocodile tears yesterday during a news conference when he announced an expansion of the state’s Service Corps geared at recruiting young men. The Post noted that he’s been making numerous such appearances trying to win back young men who are a constituency that have fled the Democrat party and have shifted toward the political right. Newsom is such a wimpy lying loser!
(https://nypost.com/2026/03/26/us-news/gavin-newsom-tears-up-while-discussing-california-jobs-program/)
WHAT? Wow, I missed that one. What an embarrassment. Thanks for posting, TJ. I swear Gavin gets off on being the biggest lying, insincere phony he can possibly be. Really, I’m not kidding, it makes him feel good. Well, as you know. He obviously thrives on it and competes with himself trying to outdo himself to be more sleazy and slimy than he was the day before.
I live in one of the towns listed. The population of our town has exploded over the past 25 years. As much as some of our city leaders want it to grow more, they have relied on groundwater for 100% of the water supply. The city is over drafting the groundwater and can’t meet the pumping regulations imposed by the same state that is putting them on the list for not allowing more growth. Lack of true leadership on so many levels. California is a mess!
for the 100th time here about the California Department of Finance (DOF):
• They produce the state’s official population projections
• In recent updates (around 2023–2024), they projected:
• Very slow population growth
• In some scenarios, near-flat growth or slight decline through ~2060
So the State is projecting no or negative growth yet is strong-arming development. let the fricken market figure it out – after removing all the bureaucratic obstacles that are the real culprit to affordability.
Isn’t Attorney General Rob Bonta the same CA AG that is ultimately responsible for prosecuting the hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud in California in the last several years. How’s he doing?
Nope. Democrat AG Rob Bonta has enabled billions of dollars of fraud to go on in the state while protecting illegal aliens, criminals, thugs, cartels, pedos, and making sure that minors can have disfiguring trans mutilations without parental consent. He’s helped destroy the state by pushing the criminal Democrat agenda while enriching himself and his Democrat thug cronies.
{crickets}
AG Greaser is too busy filing TDS lawsuits to prosecute fraud in California….
Theater of the absurd…..
Long, long before this article I saw that county and local governments are nothing more than implementors of Sacramento policy, they are impotent. The ridiculous stone faced county board of suervisors and lack of board interaction during public meetings, the communist insistence of snapping fingers in place of clapping during public meetings after constituent input to the board. The lack of meaningfull board of supervisor oversight of the county department of transportation, health and so on. The only recourse I see in the case of Sacramento insistance is to build “major” transit facilities in a relative “timbuktu” area in the political local boundries of county and city, then build the “stack and pack” around it – without parking spaces – and evict yesterday anyone not paying the rent. In the meantime, California needs to become a Cuba, Venezuela, or God forbid, a North Korean entity before the citizens revolt and, by any means necessary, kick the California commies in Sacramento and the bureaucracy out of power.
What else would a person who likens himself to the American Psycho do?
Yes, Gavin did actually do that, didn’t he, CW? He was apparently flattered by the comparison and didn’t think it through. Or did he? What a circus geek he is.
Gruscum is queer in the reals sense.
gruscum is queer.
URBAN TRANSIT Cities-Counties. That’s really the UN’s SMART CITIES aka 15-MINUTE CITIES Aka C40 CITIES . This is also the UN’s AGENDA 2030. That’s why people would hear that Media Line, By 2030 so much. Also, Any housing will be near TRAINS-Light Rail. NO CARS for us plebes and the housing units will probably be Small too. NO CARS for us Plebes. And In SAN JOSE with Sky-High housing, there was some article about a HOUSING-RAIL project near by that was highly touted. But BEWARE-this the UN. San Jose is a UN C40 City and MAYOR MAHON is running for CA GOVERNOR. He’s heavily backed by the SILICON VALLEY HIGH TECH GLOBALISTS so BEWARE of San Jose Mayor Mahon. Anyway, as far as MARIN COUNTY, I highly doubt any HIGH DENSITY anything will be built there.
CALIFORNIA CITY? there’s practically NOTHING out there except for Edward AFB. And it’s such an ugly place, very hot and BARREN. There’s miles of just dirt roads leading nowhere to empty lots. It was a big Real Estate SCAM that sounded pretty convincing at the time. My father was convinced decades ago and he bought some land. My son and I drove past this place a few years back and there’s almost NOTHING out there. Again, just very ugly, barren and hot.