The Beverly Hills Builder's Remedy Applications: High-Rise Housing in the Flats

Background

Beverly Hills is one of California's most prominent communities — a city of approximately 35,000 residents covering just under 6 square miles, characterized by low-density residential neighborhoods, high-end commercial corridors along Wilshire Boulevard and Beverly Drive, and some of the highest property values in the state. It is also a city that found itself, in 2022, at the center of the most prominent and consequential case study of California's builder's remedy mechanism in practice.

Like many California cities, Beverly Hills had not obtained HCD certification of its 6th cycle Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) cycle Housing Element when the statutory compliance deadline passed. That noncompliance triggered the builder's remedy — the provision of the Housing Accountability Act (Government Code § 65589.5) that allows developers to submit housing applications for projects inconsistent with local general plan and zoning requirements, so long as the project provides a meaningful affordable housing component. While the Housing Element is noncompliant, the city cannot deny those applications solely because they conflict with its existing land use designations.

What followed in Beverly Hills was a wave of builder's remedy applications that illustrated both the theoretical force and the practical mechanics of the mechanism — and that ultimately resolved not through the courts, but through the city's achievement of Housing Element certification.

No published court opinions resulted from the Beverly Hills builder's remedy episode. The resolution was administrative. This case study describes the events as a matter of public record and the legal framework as established by statute and HCD guidance.

The Applications: What Was Proposed and Where

Beginning in 2022, multiple developers submitted builder's remedy applications to Beverly Hills for projects that bore little resemblance to the low-density, single-family and low-rise character of the affected sites. The most prominent applications included:

• A proposed high-rise residential development of approximately 18 to 20 stories in an area of Beverly Hills zoned for low-rise commercial or office use — a project that would have been entirely incompatible with existing zoning under normal circumstances.
• Additional multifamily residential applications for sites in or near the commercial corridors along Wilshire and other major streets, at densities and heights far exceeding what the existing general plan and zoning code contemplated.

The projects were designed to qualify for the builder's remedy by including at least 20 percent of units at prices affordable to lower-income households — the threshold that triggers the mechanism's protections under Government Code § 65589.5. The developers' theory was straightforward: Beverly Hills was noncompliant with its Housing Element; the builder's remedy applied; the city was required to process the applications without being able to invoke general plan or zoning inconsistency as a basis for denial.

The applications were not fringe proposals from obscure applicants. They were submitted by experienced development entities who understood the builder's remedy and were specifically leveraging the city's noncompliance to submit projects that would not ordinarily be approvable. This was the builder's remedy functioning exactly as designed — as a mechanism that makes noncompliance costly by opening the city to projects it would prefer not to have.

Beverly Hills' Response

Beverly Hills contested the builder's remedy applications on multiple grounds. The city's arguments — representative of the legal theories many cities raised against builder's remedy applications during this period — included:

• Substantive inconsistency objections: The city argued that the proposed projects were inconsistent not just with zoning but with objective development standards that remain enforceable even in the builder's remedy context. Cities retain the ability to apply objective design standards, height limits codified as specific standards, and other objective criteria even to builder's remedy applications.
• Questions about application completeness and eligibility: Like other cities facing builder's remedy applications, Beverly Hills questioned whether submitted applications were complete under state law and whether the proposed projects actually met the eligibility requirements for the builder's remedy mechanism.
• General opposition to the mechanism itself: City leadership publicly opposed the builder's remedy concept and advocated for changes to state housing law. This is a legally irrelevant consideration but a politically significant one — it reflected the dynamic in many affluent cities where elected officials were caught between their constituents' opposition to high-density development and the state's mandates.

Beverly Hills also took the strategic step of aggressively accelerating work on its 6th cycle Housing Element — correctly identifying that HCD certification was the most reliable path to ending builder's remedy exposure for new applications.

How the Builder's Remedy Exposure Ended: Housing Element Certification

In 2023, the California Department of Housing and Community Development certified Beverly Hills' 6th cycle Housing Element, finding that it substantially complied with state housing law requirements. This certification had a critical legal consequence: once a city's Housing Element is in substantial compliance with state law, new builder's remedy applications are no longer eligible for the mechanism's protections.

Government Code § 65589.5's builder's remedy provision applies to cities whose Housing Elements are not in substantial compliance with the relevant provisions of state housing law. Certification by HCD establishes that substantial compliance — and terminates the basis for new builder's remedy applications. Developers cannot submit new builder's remedy applications to a city with a certified Housing Element and expect the mechanism to apply.

The certification did not retroactively resolve builder's remedy applications that had been submitted and accepted while Beverly Hills was noncompliant. Applications received during the noncompliance period that remained pending at the time of certification present more complex legal questions — the legal framework governing those pipeline applications is not clearly resolved, and the answer may depend on the status of the application at the time of certification. Beverly Hills and its legal counsel had to evaluate each pending application individually.

The practical outcome: the wave of high-rise builder's remedy applications that had attracted national attention effectively ended with the Housing Element certification. No new 18-story applications could be submitted under the builder's remedy mechanism. The city's general plan and zoning code resumed their full force for new applications.

What the Court Established — and What Resolved Without Courts

Unlike some builder's remedy disputes, the Beverly Hills episode did not result in published judicial opinions that established new legal precedent. The resolution was administrative — the city complied, HCD certified, and the mechanism terminated. Several important legal questions that Beverly Hills' experience raised remain contested or unresolved in the courts:

• The application of objective development standards to builder's remedy projects. Can a city apply height limits, setback requirements, and other objective standards to reject or reduce a builder's remedy project? Courts have been asked to address this, and the answer depends on whether the standards qualify as "objective" under the applicable statutory definition (Government Code § 65913.4 and related provisions define objective standards for other streamlined approval pathways; similar analysis applies under the HAA).
• The fate of pipeline builder's remedy applications after certification. The law is not definitively settled on whether a builder's remedy application that was properly submitted and accepted during noncompliance retains its builder's remedy protections after the city achieves certification. This remains an area of legal development.
• What density and height requirements a builder's remedy project can demand. The builder's remedy does not specify a maximum height or density. Developers can propose any density — theoretically. But courts have recognized that objective development standards and other HAA provisions still apply. Where exactly the line falls between protected builder's remedy parameters and enforceable local standards is an ongoing area of litigation in California.

What the Beverly Hills Episode Means for California Cities

The Beverly Hills case became the most prominent public illustration of several key aspects of how the builder's remedy works in practice:

• The builder's remedy is a real mechanism, not a theoretical threat. Before 2022, some city attorneys viewed the builder's remedy as a remote risk. Beverly Hills — one of the most prominent and politically powerful cities in California — demonstrated that experienced developers will use the mechanism against any jurisdiction that is noncompliant, regardless of the city's size, wealth, or local opposition.
• The scale of builder's remedy applications can be dramatic. The 18-20 story applications Beverly Hills received were not typical of what its zoning code contemplated for any location in the city. This is the point of the mechanism — it is designed to be costly. Developers understand that the threat of incompatible development is the pressure that drives compliance.
• Housing Element certification is the exit. Beverly Hills' experience confirmed that the fastest and most reliable way to end builder's remedy exposure is to obtain HCD certification of a compliant Housing Element. Legal challenges to individual applications are costly, time-consuming, and uncertain. Certification ends exposure for new applications. There is no legal shortcut.
• Compliance does not resolve pipeline applications. Even after certification, cities face the question of what to do with builder's remedy applications already in the pipeline. Beverly Hills had to assess each pending application individually — a complex and time-intensive process that illustrates the long-tail cost of the noncompliance period.

The Builder's Remedy in Context: A Pressure Mechanism by Design

It is worth understanding the builder's remedy for what it is, rather than what the most dramatic headlines about Beverly Hills and Woodside suggested it might be. The mechanism is not designed to permanently rezoning entire cities or to guarantee that any proposed project will be built. It is designed to create real, costly consequences for Housing Element noncompliance — consequences severe enough to incentivize compliance.

Once compliance is achieved, the mechanism no longer applies to new applications. The builder's remedy is a temporary exposure window, not a permanent development right. But while it is open, that window is real: developers can and do submit projects that cities would otherwise never approve, and cities have severely constrained ability to reject them on the most common grounds (general plan and zoning inconsistency).

Beverly Hills' experience — receiving 18-story applications in a low-density city, spending years in controversy, and ultimately resolving the exposure through Housing Element certification — is the clearest real-world demonstration of both the mechanism's force and its design logic.

Practical Guidance for Cities

1. Treat Housing Element compliance as the primary builder's remedy risk management strategy. No legal theory, resistance approach, or processing tactic ends builder's remedy exposure as effectively or reliably as HCD certification of a compliant Housing Element. Every day of noncompliance is a day during which a builder's remedy application can be filed.
2. Audit objective development standards before applications arrive. Cities retain the ability to apply objective development standards to builder's remedy applications. Know which of your development standards are objective (quantified, verifiable, and without discretion) and which are not, before a developer submits a builder's remedy application citing your noncompliance. Subjective design review standards cannot be applied; objective standards can.
3. Prepare a builder's remedy intake protocol. If your Housing Element is not yet certified, develop an internal protocol for receiving, routing, and processing builder's remedy applications. Planning staff, city attorneys, and elected officials should understand the legal framework before an application arrives — not after.
4. Evaluate pipeline applications carefully at certification. When your Housing Element is certified, conduct a legal review of any builder's remedy applications that were received during the noncompliance period and remain pending. The legal status of pipeline applications at the time of certification is not uniformly settled; consult with outside housing counsel before making processing decisions on those applications.
5. Do not confuse the builder's remedy with ministerial approval. The builder's remedy constrains the grounds for denial, but it is not a ministerial approval pathway in the sense of other streamlined statutes (like SB 35 or SB 423). The city still reviews the application; the review is just constrained. Cities that treat all builder's remedy applications as automatically approvable — or, conversely, as automatically deniable — misunderstand the mechanism.

Beverly Hills' experience with builder's remedy applications is the most prominent demonstration of how the mechanism works in practice. It confirms that the builder's remedy is real, that sophisticated developers use it, and that Housing Element certification is the exit. Cities that are not in HCD compliance today face the same exposure Beverly Hills faced in 2022. Legislaide helps city attorneys and planning directors understand builder's remedy obligations, prepare intake protocols for qualifying applications, and navigate the path to Housing Element certification.

Published April 6, 2026 by Legal Team at Legislaide.