Orange County Fair Housing Council v. City of Irvine

In hard-fought litigation challenging the City’s alleged exclusionary zoning practices and its resulting jobs/housing imbalance, settlement provides that Irvine Company will build and the City will approve 725 affordable housing units. CLIPI’s lawsuit had contended that the City and the Company were following exclusionary land use policies by attracting high taxpaying, job-producing industries, without planning for and accommodating the households of the many lower income workers who would comprise the majority of the labor force. The lawsuit is one of the first in California to focus on the obligations of every local government to plan for and accommodate its “fair share” of affordable housing.