Manhattan Beach Denied a 79-Unit Project With No Findings

Your project cleared every gate. The Community Development Director gave it a ministerial approval. The Planning Commission upheld that approval on appeal. Then the City Council — the last stop — voted it down. And when you read the resolution to find out what you did wrong, there's nothing there. No finding. No specific reason the law recognizes. Just a no.

That is what happened to the Highrose Housing Project in Manhattan Beach — a building of "79 units, including 73 market-rate units and six units affordable to very low-income (VLI) households."

Here's the thing: when a project qualifies for the Housing Accountability Act and the State Density Bonus Law, a city can't just vote no. It has to adopt specific written findings first. HCD found Manhattan Beach adopted none — and that alone made the denial unlawful in HCD's view.

What the record shows

The numbers are not in dispute. Because 11 percent of the base density is affordable to VLI households, the project qualified for a 35-percent density bonus under Gov. Code § 65915(f)(2). It carried five development standard waiver requests — buildable floor area, height, number of stories, and two setback items — plus one requested concession.

The approval path was clean. On March 29, 2022, the Community Development Director approved the project ministerially as consistent with the General Plan, Local Coastal Program, Municipal Code, and state law. On June 8, 2022, the Planning Commission upheld that approval. Then, on October 18, 2022, the City Council reversed course and denied the project by Resolution No. 22-0124.

The finding that wasn't

HCD's entire case rests on one line in its account of the record:

"The City Council made no findings supporting its denial."

Both statutes demand findings to deny. Under the HAA, HCD found the Council "wrongfully denied the Project under the HAA by failing to adopt written findings supported by a preponderance of the evidence on the record" that the project would cause a specific, adverse impact on public health or safety with no feasible mitigation (Gov. Code § 65589.5(j)(1)). Under the Density Bonus Law, denying the requested waivers required a finding of that same kind of specific adverse impact — and HCD wrote it plainly: "The City made no such findings."

HCD reviewed everything the city pointed to — the resolution, the administrative record, the documents the mayor cited — and concluded they "do not satisfy the statutory requirements for written findings of denial applicable under the HAA (Gov. Code, § 65589.5) and SDBL (Gov. Code, § 65915)." It even listened to the council meetings and reported that "while councilmembers expressed a variety of concerns, none identified a specific adverse impact that would support Project denial."

Verified against HCD's Notice of Violation to the City of Manhattan Beach (November 28, 2022), quoting Gov. Code §§ 65589.5 and 65915.

Concerns aren't findings

This is the takeaway worth writing on the wall. A council can dislike a project. Members can voice traffic worries, height worries, neighborhood-character worries — the "variety of concerns" HCD heard. Under HCD's reading, none of that counts unless it is reduced to a written finding of a specific, adverse impact on health or safety with no feasible mitigation, backed by a preponderance of the evidence on the record.

Manhattan Beach also leaned on Assembly Bill 2011 and its oil-refinery carve-out during deliberations. HCD's position: even if AB 2011 had been in effect, it was "irrelevant to the Project" — the project didn't seek CEQA streamlining, and the site already allowed residential use. Discussion of an inapplicable statute is not a finding either.

What this means for your project

HCD asked the city to repeal Resolution No. 22-0124 and to reconsider and approve the project as proposed, and warned that it could refer the matter to the Attorney General under Gov. Code § 65585(j) if the city didn't respond by December 28, 2022.

Keep the frame straight: an HCD Notice of Violation is the department's enforcement position, not a court ruling. But the rule it applies — that a qualifying project can't be denied without specific written findings — is statutory and well established. If your HAA- or density-bonus-qualified project gets voted down, read the resolution for findings first. A vote plus a list of worries is not a lawful denial. Confirm how these rules apply to your own project with your jurisdiction and your counsel before relying on any of it — this isn't 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.