Montclair tells HCD it's now compliant after state housing violation notice
City of Montclair: The California Department of Housing and Community Development issued Montclair a Notice of Violation on March 24, citing the city's failure to adopt a compliant 6th Cycle Housing Element by its October 2021 due date. Montclair was one of 15 California cities and counties on the list and the only one in the Inland Empire. HCD gave the city until April 23 to respond before referring the matter to the state Attorney General.
The city contested. In an April 22 letter to HCD, Economic Development Agency Director Mikey Fuentes argued the delay traced to the October 2025 appellate ruling in New Commune DTLA LLC v. City of Redondo Beach, which held that residential overlay zones can't satisfy a city's Regional Housing Needs Allocation when the underlying zoning permits non-residential development. Montclair scrapped its planned Housing Facilitation Ordinance, rewrote it to require housing on all Housing Opportunity Sites, and re-submitted Feb. 25.
City Council adopted the revised ordinance as an urgency measure on April 20, taking effect immediately. Fuentes told HCD that the department's Paul McDougal confirmed on April 10 the ordinance met state requirements. City Manager Edward Starr said HCD's framing misses the broader record: Montclair has planned 11,900 units in North Montclair, delivered more than 1,200 apartments and condos within half a mile of the Montclair Transportation Center since 2013, and has another 300 units under construction — most of it under the now-repealed North Montclair Downtown Specific Plan and its 2024 successor, the Arrow Highway Mixed-Use Specific Plan.
The compliance fight lands against a second loss for the city. SBCTA defunded the Metro A Line extension to Montclair in September. Montclair has issued a Demand to Cure citing Measure I, the 2004 voter-approved transportation measure that listed the extension as a West Valley project, and filed two claims against SBCTA alleging discrimination and retaliation. Litigation is being prepared. The city estimates $1.5 billion in development has already followed the extension's promise, with another $5 billion contingent on the light rail actually arriving.