“But since the HAA’s passage in 1990, this policy was entirely hypothetical and obscure because HCD never invoked it via declaring a city out of compliance.”
Cities without an approved housing element lose control over height and density for any project with 20% of units set aside for low-income residents. Santa Monica got hit first and saw a dozen proposals for 4,000 homes in a week, against 1,600 approved in the previous eight years. Beverly Hills went from a target of 3 homes per cycle to 3,000. The law sat unused for three decades because the state never enforced it. Cities had years of warning and many still filed nonsense.