After reforms, Casitas quietly are reshaping California’s cities
By John Seiler | August 22, 2025
Although I now live in Irvine, a highly planned community, I weekly drive to Huntington Beach. For most of the 38 years since I came to California, I lived near the power plant now called the Huntington Beach Energy Project. In recent months, I’ve noticed a lot of the houses in my old neighborhood sport Accessory Dwelling Units—ADUs, also called granny flats or casitas.
That stems from several ADU reform laws passed in recent years, such as Assembly Bill 68 from 2019, which eased construction of new units. From 2021, Senate Bill 9 streamlined the ADU process and Senate Bill 10 exempted up to 10 units per lot from California Environmental Quality Act strictions. And from just last month, the state budget bill largely exempted all urban housing construction from CEQA.
Surf City is a good example of how matters have advanced. In 2023, the City Council voted 4-3 to instruct City Attorney Michael Gates to take “any legal action necessary” to thwart SB 9 and SB 10. “Really, it’s a matter of local control,” Councilman Casey McKeon said at the meeting. “It should be incumbent on the residents who live here to decide how they zone their city, and if they want to allow ADUs, etc.”
Except all cities and counties are creatures of the state, which is suffering an acute housing shortage. Attorney General Rob Bonta and Gov. Gavin Newsom sued the city in federal court to defend the state laws. Last October 30, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit unanimously affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the lawsuit. And this past April 21, the Ninth Circuit refused an en banc hearing by the full court, ending the case. Said Bonta, “Like every other city in California, Huntington Beach has a legal obligation to build its fair share of housing. We will be closely monitoring what the city decides to do next.”
Bonta and Newsom also sued in state court. On April 10, 2023, Newsom’s office summarized the situation as of that date, “Since California filed its lawsuit, the city of Huntington Beach rescinded its illegal ban on SB 9 and ADU applications but refused to adopt a housing element in violation of state law, jeopardizing affordable housing opportunities for its residents.” As of July 2025, the state lawsuit remains active.
“With a few notable exceptions, cities are doing their best to implement state ADU law in good faith,” Max Dubler told me; he’s the policy manager at California YIMBY, which stands for Yes In My Back Yard, a pro-housing group. “And where they aren’t in compliance, the California Department of Housing and Community Development is doing a good job of bringing the intransigent cities into line. In 2024, HCD found the ADU ordinances in the cities of Glendale, Moreno Valley, Dana Point and Port Hueneme’s to be in violation of state law.”
According to a January report by ADU West Coast, since 2018 the state has issued more than 60,000 ADU permits. The new year also brought state requirements for all cities and municipalities to make pre-approved ADU plans available and local agencies must process ADU forms within 60 days.
However, Dubler said, “Many cities continue to blow past the application processing deadlines laid out in state law due to a lack of staff capacity. And some cities struggle to keep their ordinances and processes up to date with the latest state legislation.”
Here’s another typical development. The Casita Coalition is a non-profit that brings together ADU resources for homeowners and professionals. It provides updates on Facebook, such as this from June 30: “Berkeley just flipped the script! A city known for pioneering single-family zoning is now leading the way in making space for more homes, more neighbors and a more inclusive future. This is a key win for middle housing—and a huge step toward affordability, access, and undoing decades of exclusion. Let’s keep the momentum going.”
More needs to be done. A key area was described in an April study for UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation by Carolina Reid, “Reducing the Complexity in California’s Affordable Housing Finance System.” She recommended reducing “the complexity of the affordable housing finance system.” Developers must navigate “multiple agencies and departments at both the state and local level.”
To address that, Newsom split in two the existing Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency. He created the new Housing and Homelessness Agency and a Business and Consumer Services Agency. I’m skeptical of creating any new government bodies. Can’t current agencies at least be combined with agencies from other departments?
But a May analysis by the Little Hoover Commission found, “We believe that the changes envisioned in this plan can, if properly implemented, make concrete improvements in the lives of Californians, and in the services they receive from state government.” The key: properly implemented.
When the Legislature did not object by July 5, the reorganization automatically took effect and will be in place by July 1, 2026. We’ll see if the new bureaucracy actually streamlines financing. Although such laws haven’t provided as much new housing as hoped for, they have improved things around the margins.
Add it all up, and as far as ADUs are concerned, California is helping alleviate its housing crisis casita by casita.
John Seiler is on the Editorial Board of the Southern California News Group. Write to him at [email protected].
