## Facts

- California law required the City of Pleasanton to adopt and maintain a housing element providing adequate capacity for housing at all income levels and to accommodate its assigned RHNA.
- Pleasanton’s RHNA required capacity for 5,059 units through 2006, including 1,184 low-income units.
- The City adopted a housing element in 2003 that acknowledged existing zoning lacked sufficient high-density sites and promised rezonings to create adequate lower-income housing capacity.
- The City repeatedly postponed the promised rezoning deadlines; the state housing agency determined the City was not in compliance with housing element requirements.
- Plaintiffs challenged two local growth-control measures as preventing RHNA compliance: (1) a general-plan “housing cap” limiting total units and allegedly leaving only about 1,686 units of remaining capacity, and (2) an ordinance limiting residential building permits issued between 2007 and 2009.
- Plaintiffs filed a writ petition and action for declaratory and injunctive relief alleging ongoing statutory noncompliance; the City demurred on statute-of-limitations and ripeness grounds.
- The trial court sustained the demurrer without leave to amend and dismissed the entire action; plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Government Code § 65009’s short limitations periods barred plaintiffs’ claims challenging the City’s housing element, housing cap, and permit-limiting ordinance.
2. Whether Code of Civil Procedure § 338(a) barred any claims based on accrual at the time of earlier plan or ordinance adoption rather than continuing noncompliance.
3. Whether claims seeking relief for alleged present inability to accommodate RHNA were unripe because future legislative action might cure the asserted deficiencies.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal reversed the dismissal in substantial part and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held the trial court misconstrued the limitations analysis under Government Code § 65009 and misapplied accrual principles under Code of Civil Procedure § 338(a) as to most claims.
- The court held the trial court misapplied ripeness; claims alleging present statutory noncompliance and concrete impacts were justiciable.
- The court affirmed dismissal only as to the fifth and sixth causes of action and otherwise reinstated the case.

## Legal Principles

- Government Code § 65009’s short limitations periods apply to specified challenges to discrete land-use decisions; they do not categorically bar claims framed as enforcement of ongoing statutory duties to maintain a legally adequate housing element and sufficient capacity for RHNA.
- For continuing or recurrent statutory noncompliance, accrual is not necessarily fixed at the date of an earlier plan or ordinance adoption; a limitations defense requires careful identification of the actionable “decision” and when it became challengeable.
- Ripeness does not bar a challenge to an existing regulatory scheme when the alleged statutory violations and harms are current and concrete, even if future actions could potentially remedy the deficiency.
- On demurrer, courts must distinguish between speculative future disputes and claims alleging that current general plan and ordinances already prevent compliance with mandatory housing-planning requirements.

## Conclusion

The Court of Appeal permitted most claims challenging Pleasanton’s asserted ongoing failure to provide adequate housing capacity under state housing-planning law to proceed, holding that the trial court incorrectly treated the action as time-barred and premature; only two causes of action remained dismissed.


Urban Habitat Program v. City of Pleasanton, 164 Cal. App. 4th 1561, 80 Cal. Rptr. 3d 300 (Cal. Ct. App. 2008)