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Newport Beach residents will get to vote on a slate of new ballot initiatives, including ones aimed at shrinking the amount of new housing in their city and expanding transparency after a judge ordered city leaders to put the issues before the voters. 

The decision came after the city filed lawsuits against the county’s top elections official and the Newport Beach Stewardship Association that submitted the initiatives, questioning if the initiative had gone through the proper process to get on the ballot – like proper public notification of the measures.

[Read: Newport Beach Asks Judge to Block Ballot Initiative Aimed at Limiting Housing]

On Aug. 19, OC Superior Court Judge Julianne Bancroft ordered the city to put all four initiatives on the ballot, and denied a mandate to remove the housing initiative from the ballot. 

“The court finds that notice for all four initiatives was properly published before the collection of signatures began. The registrar of voters has confirmed that sufficient signatures were obtained for all four initiatives,” reads the decision. 

To read the rest of the ruling, click here.

The legal battle started in March, when city leaders filed a lawsuit seeking to block a ballot initiative that had over 38 new sections for the city charter, requiring an extensive slate of public records to be more easily accessible to the public and establishing a Sunshine Task Force. 

“In total, the Initiative’s provisions operate as a broad restructuring of City governance rather than a single, unified measure,” city lawyers wrote at the time, arguing it could not be put on the ballot because it was trying to change too much through a single initiative. 

After that, the association filed two more initiatives aimed at shifting the city from at-large to district voting and establishing new term limits for city council members.  

The stewardship association also filed a fourth initiative dubbed the Responsible Housing Initiative, which would require the city throw out their existing housing plan and adopt one that zones for fewer new homes. 

That could set them up for a lawsuit from the State of California, where housing officials are aggressively pushing cities to develop new homes, including via lawsuits with the cities of Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa.  

All the nearly $1 million in support for the housing initiative comes from one man – Ken Picerne, CEO of the developer Picerne Group, who has not responded to requests for comment on why he supports the initiative.  

It’s unclear from campaign filings if Picerne’s money also went to support the group’s other initiatives, or just the housing initiative. 

Newport Beach City Manager Seimone Jurjis called out Picerne for his spending in a newsletter posted to the city’s website last week.

“Residents should understand the broader context. Developer Ken Picerne has provided substantial financial support for these initiative efforts while also having significant development interests in Newport Beach and ongoing litigation with the City over development-related matters,” Jurjis wrote. 

“That context matters because ballot initiatives can affect City policies, operations, development requirements and the competitive environment for future projects,” he continued. “This financial support does not exist in a vacuum. In my view, these initiatives may provide leverage in disputes involving substantial private economic interests.”

The city’s primary complaints with the housing initiative questioned whether the stewardship association had properly circulated the petition in a local newspaper and notified the public before they got signatures. 

“This action is not about the merits of the initiative itself,” wrote Newport Beach City Attorney Aaron Harp in a statement in June. “Rather, it is about obtaining a timely and impartial judicial determination regarding whether the legal requirement established by the Legislature was satisfied.”

OC Superior Court Judge Bancroft also noted that the city’s actions “could lead to a finding of obstructionism,” adding that the city had to be ordered to send signatures to the registrar for validation and suffered other delays that were unnecessary. 

“The Court was required to order the City on multiple occasions to prepare ballot questions and arguments,” reads Bancroft’s decision. “The point of doing so was to prevent the delays that the City now contends prevent these initiatives from going on the November 2026 ballot.” 

In a Thursday morning statement, city spokesperson Georgia Rios said the city was “disappointed” by the judge’s decision. 

“Election laws are not mere technicalities, they exist to protect the public, ensure a fair and transparent process, and provide voters with accurate and timely information,” Rios wrote. “It remains the City’s position that those requirements were not followed in this case. When election rules are not enforced, it is ultimately the public, and the integrity of the electoral process that suffers.”

It’s unclear if all the initiatives will go on the ballot for this November or in the 2028 election, with the judge giving city leaders an option to pick between the two but requiring they justify delaying it two years in writing if they decide to. 

In a Thursday statement, OC Registrar Bob Page wrote that the ruling on the housing initiative “will have no impact” on putting out ballots and voter information guides on time, and that he’d notified the city of the certified signatures for the other three petitions last week. 

It remains unclear if those three initiatives will end up on the 2026 or 2028 ballot. 

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.