California could lose housing leverage over cities under court ruling

Build consensus first, then you can build buildings.

The tldr is that Charter Cities are a thing and that a characteristic of them is that they aren't bound by the same state laws as regular cities. In this story, a judge ruled that a particular charter city couldn't be compelled to follow certain state level building rules because it would violate the laws around charter cities. Various affordable housing advocates are mad about this and feel the judge should have looked the other way.