At least for the "complete discretion", California has the "Housing Accountability Act", which roughly says cities have 60 days to approve developments that con

At least for the "complete discretion", California has the "Housing Accountability Act", which roughly says cities have 60 days to approve developments that contain 20% low-income housing. If they deny it, it must be for an "objective, quantifiable, written development" policy. It's not much, requiring cities to have their housing rules written down ahead of time. But it is enough the organizations like CaRLA are having some success suing cities for capriciously denying housing. https://carlaef.org/category/legal-action/housing-accountability-act/ https://carlaef.org/category/legal-action/housing-accountabi...