Court Affirms City of Carlsbad’s Right to Shape Housing Growth Over Time

On December 18, 2025, Meyers Nave won an important growth management appeal for the City of Carlsbad that affirms the City has been correctly implementing its Growth Management Program for the last 40 years. This decision affirms our team’s original lower court win.

North County Advocates (NCA), and its members, have repeatedly sued the City for alleged violations of the Growth Management Plan for more than a decade.  This included challenges to specific development projects and a challenge to the city-wide General Plan amendment in 2017. The current case began in 2019 when NCA again alleged Carlsbad was allowing development in violation of the city’s growth management standards and Proposition E passed by voters in 1986. However, Proposition E only set the broad goal of “ensuring good traffic circulation, schools, parks, libraries, open space and recreational amenities.” The City’s specific performance standards were previously adopted by City Council, and amended numerous times over the previous decades.

The Court of Appeal unanimously confirmed that (1) existing laws referenced in a ballot measure do not become part of the text of the ballot measure, and can still be amended, and (2) the City’s regulations expressly gave the City Council the authority to amend these standards. Indeed, the Court of Appeal confirmed that NCA had conceded this point; noting “by Agreeing to the 2017 Settlement that required the City to amend the parks performance standard, NCA recognized that continuing amendment authority.”

The Court of Appeal also confirmed that the City is properly implementing its performance standards for parks, open space, and traffic, concluding that (1) the new 91.5 acre Veteran park will benefit all four quadrants of the City, (2) the City had the ability to exempt specific roadways from being widened, (3) the City had properly exempted built out zones from the open space standard in 1986, and (4) the City has been monitoring and reporting open space “in the manner agreed upon in the 2017 [NCA] Settlement.”

Development and governing in California is complex. Meyers Nave is proud to defend the City of Carlsbad and the interests of other government entities, businesses, developers, and nonprofits across the state.

To read the Court of Appeal’s decision, click here.