One developer in Beverly Hills has become the poster child for the “builder’s remedy” free-for-all in the current housing wars, but surprise surprise, he does not even intend to build the projects that he’s suing cities to get approved.
When the City of San Francisco, and cities all across California, were trying to get their state-mandated housing elements approved in late 2022/early 2023 to meet ambitious new goals for housing production, the fashionable term among the YIMBY set became "builder's remedy.” That referred to a possible free-for-all where developers could just build anything, and municipalities would not be able to stop them unless their housing elements were compliant with the state.
San Francisco passed a compliant housing element to preserve local controls (though that situation may not last) while many cities statewide failed to do so. And there has been a smattering of “builder’s remedy” projects in the Bay Area, but not the onslaught of which YIMBYs had dreamed. Though looking south, the builder’s remedy sure has remade the housing landscape in Beverly Hills.
“The law is called the ‘builder’s remedy,’ and it was designed to break the political logjams that have made California one of the most difficult places in the country to build. The law works by nullifying local zoning rules when cities fail to plan.”https://t.co/1D7nrrnQpD
— Michael Seward (@MSewardREALTOR) November 21, 2025
Today’s New York Times has a rundown on how the builder’s remedy came to be, and the Beverly Hills developer who’s employed it to its fullest. The analysis admits that “it’s still too early to say how effective it will ultimately be,” but points out that the builder’s remedy has scared some cities into approving projects they likely otherwise would not have.
CA housing folks: Why haven't builders exploited the state law exempting 20%-affordable projects from zoning / plan in cities that don't accommodate enough? @YIMBY_Law @hanlonbt @anniefryman @CAHousingPod @michaeldlane @ProfSchleich @RickHills2 @kookie13 @kimmaicutler 1/17
— Chris Elmendorf (@CSElmendorf) January 1, 2019
The Times identified the modern-day origin of the builder’s remedy movement to the above January 1, 2019 tweet from UC Davis law professor and YIMBY Twitter cheerleader Chris Elmendorf. “CA housing folks: Why haven't builders exploited the state law exempting 20%-affordable projects from zoning / plan in cities that don't accommodate enough?,” he posted, tagging various YIMBY groups that sue cities and former Scott Wiener staffers.
The tweet was considered a watershed moment, even though it cited a little-known law that already existed.
"The politics to pass anything resembling builder’s remedy would be way too difficult today,” state Assemblymember and Wiener ally Buffy Wicks told the Times. “So one of the most powerful tools in combating our housing crisis is a law that passed.”
Fast forward to 2024, when Beverly Hills was ruled out of compliance with state housing element requirements. That allowed a developer named Leo Pustilnikov to ram through a 19-story project where projects of only five stories were permitted.
The Times describes Pustilnikov as having “two decades of investing in low-income apartments,” and being “the owner of several aging buildings in downtown Los Angeles that are set aside for low-income tenants.” The term we’re looking for here might be "slumlord."
Regardless, Pustilnikov fought Beverly Hills and won. Now the Times says he has “proposed 10 such projects across Los Angeles County." And the end result of his work is that local governments statewide have been effectively scared into approving housing that they might not have otherwise.
What is ignored in the Times piece, and really pretty much all YIMBY/NIMBY discourse, is that developers are loathe to build right now, even if they do get their gigantic, towering projects approved. Construction costs, tariffs, and interest rates are keeping shovels out of the ground on approved projects that are already in the pipeline, on paper at least.
But the Times does nail one inconvenient detail that is often missed in the builder’s remedy housing debates and discourse: that developers who sue to get their builder’s remedy projects built often do not even intend to build those housing projects. This is indeed the case with the builder’s remedy baron, Leo Pustilnikov.
"As for the builder’s remedy projects he had proposed in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Redondo Beach, he told me that in most cases he didn’t plan to build them himself,” the Times points out. “Rather, his hope is to get the buildings entitled and sell the land to another builder for a premium."
Image: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 20: Construction continues on a mixed-use apartment complex that will hold more than 700 units of housing and 95,000 square feet of commercial space on August 20, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
