California DOJ sends warning letter to Del Mar over proposed Seaside Ridge project – San Diego Union-Tribune

In October 2022, the city of Del Mar received a preliminary development application for a 259-unit residential project called Seaside Ridge.

Since then, the city rejected multiple applications from property owner Carol Lazier as “incomplete” for reasons including failure to initiate the proper steps to change the zoning of the property.

In a Dec. 5 letter, the California Department of Justice warned the city that those “incomplete” determinations could be in violation of state housing law.

Lazier has argued that the project should be eligible to proceed under the Builder’s Remedy because Del Mar did not have a state-certified housing element, which outlines plans to accommodate new housing, at the time the preliminary development application was submitted.

“There is no dispute,” reads the DOJ letter, “that the preliminary application was submitted at a time when the City had not adopted a housing element that was in substantial compliance with the Housing Element Law.”

Lazier filed a petition in San Diego County Superior Court over the city’s multiple findings that the project applications were “incomplete.” But a judge dismissed the petition because Lazier had not exhausted all “administrative remedies,” referring to an appeal to the Del Mar City Council. Pending that outcome, the judge said, Lazier could resume her legal challenge.

In September, the council unanimously voted against an “initial consideration of courtesy appeal.”

“The City’s course of conduct precludes judicial review of the project as proposed and frustrates the applicant’s ability to test the legal merits of the City’s positions,” the DOJ letter said. “The City’s conduct to date could be seen as a deliberate attempt to avoid an adjudication regarding the applicability of the Housing Accountability Act’s Builder’s Remedy provisions.

The letter continues, “The application process must either narrow outstanding issues and guide an applicant toward a complete application or generate a lawful denial within a reasonable time.”

Lazier filed another petition in San Diego County Superior Court in October that would allow Seaside Ridge to proceed. It says city officials “have affirmatively and repeatedly violated— in bad faith including through actions and inactions that are frivolous, pretextual, intended to cause unnecessary delay or entirely without merit— the most basic of legislative mandates adopted by the State to provide for the development of housing sufficient to meet its housing need for all income levels.”

Del Mar City Manager Ashley Jones said via email that the city is “currently evaluating the DOJ’s comments and will continue to adhere to the procedures set forth in State housing law regarding our review of the Seaside Ridge development application.”