Appeals court calls out Clovis on inadequate plans for affordable-housing development
The city of Clovis must take more steps to outline plans for higher-density, lower-cost housing within the city, a state appeals court panel ruled Friday.
The 98-page opinion from the Fifth District Court of Appeal effectively denied the city’s appeal of a 2021 Fresno County court ruling that the city failed to comply with its obligations under state law to provide sufficient land available for development of multi-family housing and accommodate Clovis’ share of affordable housing within the county.
The lawsuit was originally filed in October 2019 by attorneys representing Desiree Martinez, who alleged that by failing to comply with California’s Housing Element Law, Clovis effectively was discriminating against lower-income families because its zoning practices were too heavily focused on single-family homes. Martinez sought a writ ordering the city to take additional action through revisions to the housing element of its General Plan to accommodate more affordable housing.
The lower-court judge, Kristi Culver Kapetan, had previously ordered the city in May 2021 to amend its housing element and zoning to include more than 4,400 affordable-housing units.
The city, in turn, appealed Culver Kapetan’s ruling to the Fifth District Court of Appeal, arguing that it had already substantially complied with the state law. In its appeal, attorneys for the city of Clovis argued that upholding the trial court’s decision “will severely compromise efforts both locally and statewide to provide sites for the development of lower-income housing.”
In Friday’s opinion, justices Donald Franson, Jennifer Detjen and Thomas DeSantos disagreed with most of the city’s arguments and affirmed Culver Kapetan’s ruling issuing a writ of mandate compelling the city to:
- Adopt a housing element for the city’s 2015-2023 planning period “that substantially complie” with state law.
- “Zoning or rezoning an adequate number of sites … to accommodate the City’s unmet share of RHNA” (regional housing needs allocation). The RHNA is a determination of regional housing needs determined by the Fresno County Council of Governments.
What the ruling means
The regional housing needs allocation does not require cities or counties to actually develop low-income housing, but does require them to provide sufficient locations zoned and available for such projects.
While Kapetan had ruled that Clovis did not necessarily actively discriminate against low-income families, “we interpret (the state law) as requiring public agencies to do more than simply refrain from housing discrimination,” the appellate justices wrote in their opinion. “Thus, a trial court’s finding that a city or county did not discriminate in its housing related programs and activities does not automatically mean the entity fulfilled ‘its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing.’”
Thus, the appellate justices sent the case back to the county trial court for further action on Martinez’s discrimination claims against the city.
“We find as a matter of law the City violated its duty to ‘administer its programs and activities relating to housing and community development in a manner to affirmatively further fair housing,’” Franson added, when the city adopted zoning provisions that did not comply with specific density requirements for housing.
The city did score a partial victory as the appellate panel overturned one of Culver Kapetan’s findings that Clovis violated statutory provisions for analysis of sites larger than 10 acres or vacant properties.
But, the justices added, “despite reversal of this finding, the writ of mandate issued is otherwise affirmed because its terms are necessary to remedy the failure” of the city’s zoning to comply with the density requirements of the state’s Housing Element Law.
The background for the case
Attorneys for Martinez asserted that the city’s years of efforts to sidestep accommodations for the development of higher-density, more affordable housing options for families had served to discriminate against low-income households and, as a result, make it more difficult for many families of color to find a place to live in Clovis.
“Clovis didn’t get to be 70% white by accident,” Patience Milrod, then executive director of Central California Legal Services, said in 2019. “In many ways, because race and income are so linked, when Clovis says, ‘Hey, we’re going to zone in a way that only rich people can afford to live here,’ they are zoning in a way that only white people can live here. They cannot claim ignorance of that linkage.”
Clovis leaders have long bristled at the perception that the city is reluctant to open its arms to racial or ethnic minorities or lower-income families.
“It is time to put a stop to the archaic and inflammatory assertions that Clovis is a community that welcomes only ‘rich and white’ newcomers,” then-mayor and current City Councilmember Drew Bessinger told The Fresno Bee when the 2019 lawsuit was filed.
“While it may make for a good headline, it is not reflective of reality and insults our community’s values and personal ethics,” Bessinger added. “Our community of more than 115,000 is a tapestry of individuals made up of people from diverse economic, racial, religious and educational backgrounds. We welcome all who wish to call the City of Clovis home.”
The appellate ruling, though, indicates that Clovis still has work to do to live up to Bessinger’s statement. An amendment to the city’s housing element “did not identify sufficient sites to accommodate the City’s unmet lower-income housing allocation” from a previous planning cycle “and, therefore, did not substantially comply with the Housing Element Law.”
