their first suit was in 2015, when sfbarf sued the city of lafayette, california for blocking a housing development. the group referred to this as part of their "sue the suburbs" campaign, creating a website under this name. the suit claimed that under california's housing accountability act, the lafayette city council could not force developers to reduce the density of a housing project, since the project already complied with all zoning laws. in a televised debate with sfbarf, lafayette mayor brandt andersson argued the suit was unwarranted, saying that lafayette should "keep multi-unit housing downtown" near the bart station.