Beverly Hills Told 10 Builder's Remedy Projects to Rezone Themselves
You can't force a Builder's Remedy project to rezone itself to cure an inconsistency the law forbids holding against it.
You've got a Builder's Remedy project. Your site's zoning doesn't allow it — that's the entire point of the Builder's Remedy. Then the city's letter comes back: incomplete. Before we'll process this, apply for a General Plan Amendment and a zone change so your project matches our code. In other words: rezone your own site to fix the exact inconsistency the Builder's Remedy exists to override.
Here's the thing: HCD's position is that a city can't do that.
What Beverly Hills did
On December 2, 2024, HCD issued a Notice of Violation to the City of Beverly Hills over ten Builder's Remedy applications — 981 units total, including 198 affordable to low-income households. Across all ten, the city had issued incompleteness determinations on one recurring basis: the developer hadn't applied for a General Plan Amendment and Zoning Change (GPA/ZC). No GPA/ZC, no complete application, no processing.
The Builder's Remedy — Gov. Code § 65589.5(d)(5) — exists precisely because these projects don't match local zoning. When a city's housing element is out of compliance, the Housing Accountability Act (HAA) bars the city from disapproving a qualifying affordable or mixed-income project for being inconsistent with the general plan and zoning. All ten applicants had filed preliminary applications before May 1, 2024, when HCD certified Beverly Hills's housing element as substantially compliant.
Why "rezone yourself first" fails
HCD's reasoning is short and sharp:
"…it would be illogical if the jurisdiction could lawfully disapprove a project for failing to resolve that very inconsistency."
Demanding a GPA/ZC is a demand for consistency. Punishing a developer for not curing the inconsistency is the same thing as disapproving the project for inconsistency — which the HAA forbids. HCD said as much:
"…the City's requirement for a GPA/ZC is essentially a requirement for consistency, and disapproving the Project for failure to resolve that inconsistency is effectively a disapproval on the grounds of inconsistency. The HAA prohibits such a disapproval."
The checklist backstop
Even setting the HAA aside, HCD found a second problem under the Permit Streamlining Act. A city can only deem an application incomplete for items on its own submittal checklist. Quoting Gov. Code § 65943(a), HCD noted the incompleteness list "shall be limited to those items actually required on the lead agency's submittal requirement checklist." Beverly Hills's checklist did not list a GPA/ZC at the time of submittal — so, HCD found, the city couldn't call the applications incomplete for leaving one out.
Verified against HCD's Notice of Violation to the City of Beverly Hills (Builder's Remedy applications), December 2, 2024 — citing Gov. Code §§ 65589.5(d)(5), 65943, and 65941.1.
The vesting trap underneath
HCD also flagged how the city treated vesting. A preliminary application stays vested unless the units or square footage change by 20 percent or more (§ 65941.1(c)). HCD found the city voided vesting over changes that didn't cross that line — adding State Density Bonus Law concessions and waivers, or a Subdivision Map Act request. On 211 Hamilton Drive (210 units, 42 affordable), the city said vesting was lost because the "theoretical maximum density" in a zone-change application exceeded 20 percent — but, HCD pointed out, the unit count never changed. HCD also reiterated that the 90-day resubmittal clock resets after each incompleteness determination, not once.
What HCD told the city to do
HCD's instruction was direct: city staff "must process all projects contained in this letter without further delay and without imposing a requirement for a GPA/ZC." The city had until December 20, 2024, to respond, with referral to the California Attorney General on the table.
If your Builder's Remedy application is stuck behind a demand to rezone your own site — or an "incomplete" that cites something not on the city's checklist — this is worth a hard look. One caution: this is HCD's enforcement position, not a court ruling. HCD letters interpret the law; they don't settle it. Verify with your jurisdiction and your own counsel before you rely on any of it. Nothing here is legal advice.
What CrossBeam does with it
When the letter lands on your desk, CrossBeam turns it around the same day: what each item is actually asking, the code or law behind it, and a written response you can hand to your team or your attorney — the back-and-forth that used to eat weeks, done in a couple of hours.