Legalizing a non-conforming unit in Long Beach

The largest market in the region

72,755 apartment units, nearly eighty percent built before 1980 — more than half of all the apartment stock across the cities we serve, in a single city.

Two routes, not one

Long Beach is the only city we serve with its own local amnesty ordinance. LBMC Chapter 21.66 creates a city pathway for legalizing unpermitted dwelling units, running alongside the state pathway under Government Code § 66311.7. Which route serves a building better depends on the unit: the state pathway bars impact fees and narrows the grounds for denial, while the local one reaches units the state definition does not. We look at both before filing.

The coastal question

Long Beach has a certified Local Coastal Program, so the city issues coastal development permits itself. LBMC § 21.25.903 expressly lists legalization under the amnesty program as a project requiring a coastal permit within the coastal zone — which covers the beachfront and bayfront neighborhoods. Most of the city's apartment stock sits outside it.

Rent control

Long Beach has no local rent cap. It does have a just-cause for eviction ordinance, LBMC Chapter 8.99, which exempts units whose certificate of occupancy was issued within the previous fifteen years. Rent increases are governed by the statewide Tenant Protection Act.

What the city can and cannot do

Long Beach cannot deny a permit for a pre-2020 unit because it violates building standards or the local ADU ordinance. It can deny only if it finds that correcting the violation is necessary to meet the substandard-building threshold in Health & Safety Code § 17920.3.

That is a far narrower test than full compliance with current code. A unit can fall short of today's standards in a dozen ways and still be permitted, so long as none of them makes the building substandard.