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December 20, 2022 <br /> Page 2 <br /> rezone sites, and subjected the city to court supervision of its land use <br /> decisions for some years. <br /> • The City will be vulnerable to a lawsuit challenging the City's approval of <br /> any public or private project, alleging that a finding of General Plan <br /> consistency cannot be made because the General Plan is inadequate. <br /> • The City may not base the denial of any housing development containing <br /> 20 percent lower income housing on the project's inconsistency with the <br /> City's General Plan and zoning ordinance. <br /> • The City will be ineligible for or have lower priority for certain state funds <br /> and possibly for certain funds allocated by [list]. <br /> Consequences of an Inadequate Housing Element <br /> Beginning in 2017, the Legislature began to strengthen the penalties for cities' <br /> failures to adopt and implement their housing elements. The following are some <br /> of the consequences of an inadequate housing element. <br /> /'\ <br /> A. Litigation by the Attorney General.AB 72,adopted in 2017, <br /> authorizes HCD to notify the Attorney General if a city is in violation of Housing <br /> Element law, and the Attorney General may bring suit to compel compliance.' If <br /> a Court orders a city to bring its housing element into compliance, but the city <br /> has not complied after one year, the Court "shall" impose fines ranging from <br /> $10,000 to$100,000 per month. After three additional months, if the city has still <br /> not complied,the court may triple the fine;and after three additional months,the <br /> fine may increase by six times, to a maximum of $600,000 per month, and the <br /> Court may act as the governing body itself to bring the housing element into <br /> compliance.2 <br /> Even before the adoption of AB 72, when the City of Pleasanton was sued by <br /> Urban Habitat in 2006 for failure to rezone sites for affordable housing to meet <br /> RHNA, the Attorney General joined (intervened) in the lawsuit against the City. <br /> That brought the full resources of the State into the litigation against Pleasanton. <br /> B. Litigation by Interested Parties. If the City does not have a <br /> housing element in compliance with Housing Element law, any "interested <br /> party"may bring an action to compel the City to comply with State law.3 Housing <br /> I Government Code §§ 65585(j), (k). All future references are to the Government Code unless <br /> otherwise stated. <br /> 2§65585(1). <br /> 3§65587(b). <br /> 990052\0113078344 1 <br />