This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
By Ben Christopher, CalMatters
As lawmakers scramble to turbocharge post-fire recovery efforts in Los Angeles and to tackle a housing shortage across the state, a new addition may be coming to California’s building code: A pause button.
Assembly Bill 306 would freeze the building standards — the rules governing the architecture, the layout, the electrical wiring, the plumbing, the energy use and the fire and earthquake safety features — for all new housing through at least 2031. Local governments, which often tack on their own requirements, would also be kept from doing so in most cases.
Building standards tend to reflect the state’s most pressing concerns. New seismic requirements are added after major earthquakes, home-hardening requirements have followed deadly fires and new green energy mandates have popped up as California has raced to prepare for a warmer planet.
This latest proposed change to the code is meant to tackle another crisis: affordability.
The bill wouldn’t delete any of the current rules, which are widely considered to be among the most stringent of any state’s. It would also include exceptions, most notably for emergency health and safety updates. But on the whole, the California building code would be set on cruise control for the better half of a decade.
Assemblymember Nick Schultz, a freshman Democrat from Burbank and the lead author of the bill, said there’s nothing extreme about leaving the code as it is for a few years, particularly as homeowners in Altadena and the Palisades rebuild.
Though Schultz introduced the bill, the second listed co-author may explain why such a significant policy change swept through the Assembly with little resistance: Speaker Robert Rivas. In early April the bill passed out of the Assembly with 71 “yes” votes. No lawmakers voted against it. Now it heads to the state Senate.
Such smooth legislative sailing notwithstanding, plenty of environmental advocates, renewable energy industry groups, construction unions, structural engineers and code enforcement officials have turned out to oppose the bill.
Building standards need to be nimble because the effects of climate change are unpredictable, said Laura Walsh, policy manager with Save the Bay, a nonprofit focused on conservation and preparing for rising seas. They see it as a radical upending of the way the state regulates buildings, reduces emissions and prepares for a changed climate.
“We’ll get to a place in the trend where things get worse really fast,” she said.
Beyond the specifics of the debate, the bill represents something fairly new in the politics of California housing.
Over the last decade, lawmakers in Sacramento have passed a raft of bills aimed at making it easier to build new homes. Most of those bills have set their sights on the zoning code — the patchwork of land-use standards that dictate which types of buildings can go where. If you recall any high-profile political battles about apartment buildings in exclusive suburbs, dense residential development near transit stops or proposed mountain lion sanctuaries — that’s all about zoning.
Now some lawmakers are considering a new deregulatory target. Schultz’s freeze is the most dramatic example of a handful of bills this year that would take on the impenetrably technical, frequently overlooked and ever-changing building code — all for the cause of cheaper housing.
As California legislators are “finding religion on land use, other issues are sort of bubbling up,” said Stephen Smith, founder of the Center for Building in North America, a nonprofit that advocates for changes to building codes that make it easier to build apartment buildings. “Architects, developers, contractors are pointing out, ‘No, actually, there are barriers in the actual construction process and many of those do go back to the building code.’”
Where does the building code come from?
California’s building code does not originate in California.
As with most states, our code takes as its jumping off point a set of general rules written by the International Code Council, a nonprofit organization governed by a mix of building industry associations, state and local regulators, engineers and architects. Despite the name, the organization is based in Washington D.C. and its model codes are a predominantly North American product.
“It’s like naming the World Series the World Series,” said Eduardo Mendoza, a research associate with California YIMBY, an organization that promotes more housing development.
The Code Council puts out its model codes every three years. The state then gets to work on its own version in a year-long process involving seven state departments.
These exceedingly arcane deliberations typically receive little attention from the public. The exception is a small cadre of engineers, developers, architects, appliance manufacturers, energy efficiency, solar and climate advocates and other parties with a direct financial or ideological interest in the way new things get built.
For these groups, the triannual code adoption cycle — and the “intervening” amendment process for urgent updates — make for an endless game of regulatory tug-of-war.
“It’s all very bureaucratic, very dry, but still extremely political,” said Mendoza.
Now that behind-the-scenes fight is playing out in public.
On one side are housing developers. Keeping up with the salvo of state and local building code changes is its own full-time job, said Dan Dunmoyer, president of the California Building Industry Association, a trade group for big builders.
“We had the most seismically safe, water-reduced, fire retardant, energy efficient homes in the world two years ago and we just keep on adding more and more and more to it,” he said. “At what point do you just take a pause?”
A potential pause is especially appealing to many affordable housing developers, who typically rely on multiple sources of funding, all with their own restrictions and timelines. If a change in the building code means going back to the architectural drawing board and delaying a permit application, that can put off a potential project “another year or two,” said Laura Archuleta, president of Jamboree Housing Corporation, a nonprofit low-income housing developer in Irvine.
California would not be the first state to consider tapping the breaks on its building code. In 2023, legislators in North Carolina passed a law banning most changes through 2031. That bill, backed by that state’s building industry association, froze in place a significantly older code than California’s; some of North Carolina’s energy efficiency rules hadn’t been changed since 2009.
California’s so-called 2025 code is currently in the works and is set to go into effect in January 2026, but not if Schultz’s measure passes. The bill would freeze the current rules in place starting on June 1.
The experts who help write the state’s building standards have “health and safety and other criteria in mind but they don’t have cost as a factor in their decision making — well, they should,” said Assemblymember Chris Ward, a San Diego Democrat who voted for Schultz’s bill. He is also the author of two other building code related bills this year. One would require the state to consider subjecting small apartment buildings to a more relaxed set of standards. The other would reevaluate whether builder should have more flexibility in meeting the state’s energy efficiency rules.
Ward said that mining the building code for possible cost savings is an idea embraced by a growing number of his colleagues.
“The theme of the year has been ‘let’s all focus in on the cost of construction and on reducing the cost of housing,” he said.
What’s the real cost driver?
Opponents of the bill argue that in their quest for affordability, supporters have either picked the wrong villain — or, at the very least, approached the problem with a sledgehammer when what’s needed is a scalpel.
“There’s just this idea that if you simplify things in some ways, it will help,” said Merrian Borgeson, policy director with Natural Resources Defense Council, who calls the bill “well-intentioned” if fundamentally flawed in its premise. “The driver of cost in California for housing is not code.”
The state’s building industry disagrees.
According to estimates provided by the state industry association, major building standard updates over the last 15 years have added between $51,000 and $117,000 to construction costs on each single-family home. By far the largest estimated cost, with an upper end of $65,000, was the price tag on the water utility hook-up required for sprinkler systems mandated in new single-family homes since 2011. California, Maryland and Washington D.C. are the only state-level jurisdictions with this requirement.
For apartment buildings alone, a national study sponsored by the building industry attributed 11% of total development costs to changes in the International Code Council model codes since 2012.
It’s impossible to independently verify any of these estimates. But if code changes don’t cost much, developers certainly seem to act as if they do. Reuben Duarte, a land-use planner with the California Chapter of the American Planning Association, said in the months before a scheduled code update, city planning departments are always the scene of “a mad rush from developers who are trying to get in” before the new rules go into effect.
A code for cheaper construction
Most of the big ticket changes to California’s standards over the last decade have been about energy efficiency and electrification. Some of these requirements have added upfront costs for developers, said Matt Vespa, an attorney with the environmental legal nonprofit Earthjustice, but they ultimately save homeowners in the long-run.
“The cost of housing is just one part of affordability,” he said. He pointed to possible energy code changes that would allow homes to calculate their electricity needs differently, potentially saving on costly capacity upgrades. “Those energy code enhancements could save people money on their energy bills and that is part of affordability. Why is that completely not considered in this equation?”
It’s that prospect of preventing changes to the code that might actually save money that has even some pro-building, “yes in my backyard” advocates concerned about the bill as currently written.
How could the building code make a building less expensive to build? A 2023 law, for example, directs state regulators to consider letting developers build apartment buildings over three stories with just one staircase rather than at least two. Single stair construction is an architectural mainstay outside that United States that allows for more housing to occupy a given lot and is estimated to bring down construction costs on mid-sized apartment buildings by as much as 13% without obviously elevating fire risk.
Schultz’s bill includes a carve out for any future single stair changes. It also includes exceptions for code amendments aimed at making it easier to convert office buildings into apartments and condos, another legislative directive. But additional cost-saving changes could get frozen out.
One possibility: Dallas, Texas recently adopted a new, relaxed set of codes for mid-sized apartment buildings, a considerable step down from the rules in place in most American cities where they share a set of standards with skyscrapers.
Smith with the Center for Building said he understands why someone who “just doesn’t trust that the building code development process is going to appropriately balance affordability and all the other concerns” would support the bill. But “it’s a little upsetting to see everyone throwing the baby out with the bath water,” he said.
The “baby,” in this case, refers to possible cost-reducing changes that Smith said are more likely to be found for apartment buildings.
“If I were a single family developer, I’d be a lot more happy with the code as it is than if I were a multifamily developer and a lot more eager to fix it in place,” said Smith.
Schultz stressed that though the bill has already passed out of the Assembly, it remains a work in progress. He said he is currently negotiating possible changes to the bill that would allow for a general “escape hatch” for any proposed “changes to the code that might actually reduce the cost of housing.”
After all, he added, “that is the goal.”
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This ignores the facts that the owners want you to not attend to. First, CA has been building housing at an extraordinary clip for he past decade or more. Second, CA’s population is in decline (or maybe stable). Despite these basic facts, rents have soared and people seeking to buy or rent long term have been put on the back burner. Owners of these properties, often hedge funds. have taken property off the market for such purposes so they can get much higher returns as vacation rentals. This is not a small problem and it exists around the world. Spain has just told 65,000 rentals that were illegally being rented as Airbnb type housing to stop it and comply with laws. We know that in places like SB (and CA in general) there are probably even more of these rentals (whether or not “legal”) that have removed that inventory from use by families and young peoples trying to get housing as they start their adult life. Crackdown on this exploitation and things will be a lot better without messing around with construction safety or environmental damage threats.
No, it is not.
You’re always wrong.
You’re wrong.
Prove it.
Prove you’re right? I usually agree with stuff you say btw.
Oh, I thought you said I was wrong about Basic always being wrong about everything.
Not in this case, but ya usually that’s true.
This is all hogwash. The only thing cost does is affect the profit made by the developers. It has NOTHING to do with the sale or rental price. The only thing that affects those is what the market will bear. If a developer just built a new 3bd/2ba house next to a 30 year old neighborhood they’ll get no more (or a bit more) than a similar house for sale in that neighborhood. If it cost that dev 50% less to build, do you think they’d sell for less than that old house? No. The only thing that affects price is what someone is willing to pay. Housing prices in SB will never go down – EVER. Build 10K more units and you’ll have 10k more market rate housing. Now, one thing that could help everyone is if we denied corporations and non-citizens from owning them. Basically, those two groups have tons of members that are so wealthy they simply can’t find enough places to stuff their money. So, SB, being one of the most desirable places in the world to live or visit is a perfect place for them to invest when money is not ever an issue. There have to be ways to do what everyone (except homeowners) wants – lower cost of living in paradise – but this stuff here ain’t any of them.
Watch if you dare https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaSn0iqzVv4
Robert Reich, multi-millionaire, attempting to call out other millionaires who are making loads of dough doing something completely and nothing illegal. What a hoot! I believe what he is saying in the video, but it’s like Oprah talking about the one meal she missed when she was “poor.” Puh-Leazzzze! Hey Robert Reich, help those in need and don’t quit your day job!
You like the message but not the messenger. Usually good and honest information comes from good and honest people. Usually… You’re an odd Bee.
preliminari: It’s about optics. Bernie Sanders used to really get down and dirty by railing on the one-percenters, and the millionaire and billionaire class. The Bern is now a one-percenter and a millionaire. Yep…The Bern. So now Bernie’s schtick is to fly private around the country to call out “The Billionaires.” Indefensible in my opinion. Robert Reich is only selling to add to his bottom line. He is just like Trump, so maybe he’ll start selling steaks, hats, mugs, t-shirts, and such.
Your approach of selling BS has obviously failed.
Thanks for the clarification. I’ll remember to ignore your silly comments in the future.
Bees – most people on the South Coast who own a home can be considered “millionaires” based on the value of that home. Especially if it was passed down to them from their grandparents to parents to them and they don’t owe a thing on it. We can hardly put all the homeowners here in the same category as billionaires. You’re such a weird person.
Anon: LOL! Nice backtrack, bro. You sound like an open-minded person >>eye roll<<.
Huh? That made no sense at all.
SBSurferlife (anonymous), I totally disagree with that. There are plenty of folks here who own homes who aren’t millionaires. It’s most folks. Those who got free bee passed down homes from dead parents should but won’t anytime soon be paying more taxes for their gifted homes. I think you’re way off.
LOL still ranting about SBSURFERLIF! Dude, get a grip.
Oh my god, you’re like totally obsessed with me. Sad.
Spring is in the air! 🤣
Yeah. I’m a millionaire and I live on less than 25K a year. But I do own a house in SB. So Reich’s net worth is reportedly 4 million. Big deal. He does good work in his rich, “multi-millionaire” life.
What is Reich selling and how the hell is he like Trump?!?!!
Have you ever read a word he’s written?!
Sacjon: The victim shaming does not work on those who are or were never victims to begin with…try a diff avenue. Make a difference…don’t BE the difference.
BEES – gobblygook. I’m not shaming anyone but BASIC. He/she is the “victim” to you?
You know, you don’t have to always inject yourself into others’ conversations, right?
Are there hidden comments? You seem to be reacting to something I don’t see. And I see 0 comments deleted by Admin.
https://www.edhat.com/penalty-comments/
Oh, I see. You are reacting to yourself and claiming that Anon above is SBSURF… It just took me a few to put it all together. All that said, this article, while informative, as NOTHING to do with the Title. NOTHING. Affordable housing doesn’t exist in CA where people really want to live. It can, but would take some real effort. Like, that whole article talks about lowering the cost for developers (increasing margin), not the price of the building to the consumer. Now, if we take the profit motive out and create state owned housing that cannot be used to build equity that has certain exemptions like property tax and whatnot it might go a long way. Now, you’d use union labor to build so you’re pumping money into the economy at a fair wage, but you’re taking the current and future profit motive out of the picture AND housing people. I guess it sounds like “The Projects” but in theory, if managed well, then it should work – no? Short of that, everyone that fantasizes about “affordability” around here needs a reality check. Nothing they approve or vote for or wish for or pray for will ever come to exist. And any entity that uses the word “affordable” in their promotions and building applications and pitches to local governments should be sued for false advertising.
PRELIM – no, I’m not. BASIC is claiming that. Eh… forget it. This one has gone way off the rails lol!