What California’s Builder’s Remedy Means for London’s Housing Debate

An eight-story, 55-unit residential building in Beverly Hills has been approved by the city council under a California law known as the “Builder’s Remedy,” despite the council’s stated reluctance. The case, reported by Urbanize LA and picked up by Planetizen, offers a stark example of state-level intervention in local planning decisions. For London-watchers, it raises questions about the effectiveness of government enforcement mechanisms, housing element compliance, and the balance between local autonomy and housing delivery targets.

The project at 232 S. Tower Drive was approved after the city had failed to secure state approval for its housing element update — a required plan showing how the city will meet its housing allocation. Under California’s Housing Accountability Act, cities without a compliant housing element lose the ability to deny housing projects that meet basic affordability and density criteria, even if they violate local zoning rules. This is the “Builder’s Remedy” in action.

Por que importa

Key facts
| Item | Detail |
|——|——–|
| Project | 232 S. Tower Drive, Beverly Hills, California |
| Height | 8 storeys |
| Units | 55 residential units |
| Approval status | Uphold by city council, July 2026 |
| Mechanism | California Builder’s Remedy (Housing Accountability Act) |
| Local opposition | Carthay Beverly Hills Neighbors group cited zoning, environmental, and federal policy concerns |

What is the Builder’s Remedy?
The Builder’s Remedy is a provision of California’s Housing Accountability Act that allows developers to propose projects that do not comply with local zoning, as long as the city has not had its housing element certified by the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development. The law is designed to force recalcitrant cities to update their zoning codes to accommodate enough housing to meet regional needs. Beverly Hills, like many wealthy California suburbs, had been slow to upzone, and the threat of losing local control over development approvals is the lever.

Contexto

The city council’s staff report acknowledged that the project violated local zoning, state environmental law, and even federal policies, but concluded that state law left the city no choice but to approve it. This is a deliberate feature of the law: it removes discretion from local planning authorities when they fail to comply with state housing targets.

How it compares to UK planning obligations
The UK has no equivalent of the Builder’s Remedy, but elements of state preemption exist. The Housing Delivery Test (HDT) penalises councils that deliver fewer than 75% of their housing target by applying a presumption in favour of sustainable development, meaning that permission should be granted for housing unless material harm can be demonstrated. However, the HDT is a delivery metric, not a compliance tool for strategic plans. Councils that have an up-to-date local plan are generally protected from speculative development.

The Planning Inspectorate also has the power to intervene in local plan preparation, and the government can direct councils to adopt plans or face sanctions. Yet the California approach is more direct: it strips the city of its ability to enforce local zoning on specific projects until the housing element is approved. In London, the Mayor’s London Plan sets strategic housing targets, but boroughs retain significant control over individual planning applications. The GLA can call in applications of strategic importance, but the threshold is high.

Some UK housing experts have called for stronger enforcement of housing targets, including automatic approval of applications in areas where delivery is persistently low. The Beverly Hills case provides a real-world test of how such a policy might work in practice — and what local resistance looks like when it does.

What London can learn
London’s housing crisis is driven by a combination of land costs, planning constraints, and infrastructure funding gaps. But the gap between targets and delivery is partly a result of boroughs resisting density and defining down their own land supply. The Mayor’s housing targets are not legally binding on boroughs, and the government’s recent proposed reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) have included strengthening the standard method for calculating housing need, but enforcement remains weak.

The California experience shows that a credible threat of losing local control can produce results. Beverly Hills, after years of delay, is now moving to update its housing element. The Builder’s Remedy case also demonstrates that local opposition will be fierce, but the law is designed to override it. London boroughs that consistently under-deliver could face similar pressure if the government were to introduce a more automatic approval mechanism.

However, the UK context is different. The Builder’s Remedy applies only to cities that have not submitted an approved housing element. London’s boroughs have all submitted local plans, but many are outdated or not compliant with the London Plan. The GLA’s powers to enforce compliance are limited. The government could, in theory, apply a similar condition: if a borough’s local plan is more than five years old, or if it fails the Housing Delivery Test for three consecutive years, then the presumption in favour of sustainable development could be strengthened to include automatic approval of schemes that meet certain affordability criteria.

The Beverly Hills project will be watched closely by housing advocates in the UK. If it delivers the 55 units quickly and without major legal challenges, it may strengthen the case for a “Builder’s Remedy” style reform in England. But the legal and political architecture is different, and any such reform would need to address the issue of infrastructure capacity, which is a bigger constraint in London than in Beverly Hills.

The limitations of the comparison
It is important to note that the Beverly Hills case is a single example, and the legal framework is specific to California. The UK’s planning system is based on plan-led development, not zoning by right. The concept of “zoning” does not exist in the same way; local planning authorities decide applications on their merits. A Builder’s Remedy would require a fundamental shift in the legal status of local plans. Furthermore, the UK has development management and environmental impact assessment requirements that are more complex than California’s typical CEQA review.

Opponents of the Beverly Hills project argued that the development would have negative environmental and traffic impacts, and that the city’s staff report acknowledged some of those concerns. The fact that the council approved it anyway highlights the tension between state housing policy and local environmental and quality-of-life considerations. A similar debate would play out in London if automatic approval mechanisms were introduced.

Source: Planetizen News, “Beverly Hills ‘reluctantly’ approves 8-story Builder’s Remedy project”, https://www.planetizen.com/news/2026/07/138069-beverly-hills-reluctantly-approves-8-story-builders-remedy-project

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