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The Norwalk City Council at last night’s meeting.
September 18, 2022
(NBCLA) Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s threat of a possible lawsuit over its emergency ordinance that bans homeless shelters and supporting housing facilities, the city council voted Tuesday to extend the moratorium through August 2025.
The vote came a day after Gov. Newsom sent a notice of violation letter to the city, saying the moratorium on various establishments, such as emergency shelters, single-room occupancy, supportive housing and transitional housing is “unlawful.”
City staff recommended during the city council meeting that the council pass the motion to extend the moratorium, so it can conduct a further study on how prohibiting the types of facilities would impact the community and whether the city would need zoning amendments.
Before Tuesday’s council meeting, Norwalk Mayor Margarita Rios urged Newsom to acknowledge her city’s “proactive measures” to address homelessness while asking for “direct resources to support” its efforts.
The city council had noted the city’s power to make and enforce ordinances to regulate the use of land within its jurisdictional boundaries when it passed the ordinance.
Although Norwalk passed the moratorium based on the Housing Crisis Act, which allows local governments to issue a housing or facility ban when there’s “an imminent threat” to public health and safety, the state argued in the letter that “there are no findings of a threat specific to the housing subject to the moratorium, nor any finding of a citywide threat.”
With the notice of violation, the state implied that Norwalk could face the same fate as Anaheim and Huntington Beach. The two Orange County cities were forced to bring forward new housing plans after they lost lawsuits brought on by the state in similar fashion.
In a statement, Newsom’s team condemned the city’s decision. “The Norwalk City Council’s decision is disgraceful and clearly violates the law,” the statement read. “The state will act swiftly to address this dereliction of duty. Stay tuned.”
