Is secret to California’s housing affordability buried in its building code?

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 would freeze the building standards the rules governing the architecture the layout the electrical wiring the plumbing the potential use and the fire and earthquake safety features for all new housing through at least Local governments which often tack on their own requirements would also be kept from doing so in bulk cases Also see State Farm gets California nod to hike homeowner policies Building standards tend to reflect the state s majority pressing concerns New seismic requirements are added after major earthquakes home-hardening requirements have followed deadly fires and new green potential 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 problem affordability Also see income needed to buy a California home up since The bill wouldn t delete any of the current rules which are widely considered to be among the most of stringent of any state s It would also include exceptions preponderance notably for urgency strength and safety updates But on the whole the California building code would be set on cruise control for the better half of a decade Related Articles townhome units planned for Sunnyvale shopping center irks several residents San Jose deal could change fortunes of West St James housing towers San Jose incentive plan spurs multifamily advancement despite the economic challenges Luxury apartment complex at Santana Row bought for more than million Buyer emerges for landmark San Jose housing towers facing foreclosure Assemblymember Nick Schultz a freshman Democrat from Burbank and the lead author of the bill disclosed there s nothing extreme about leaving the code as it is for a limited 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 vital program change swept through the Assembly with little resistance Speaker Robert Rivas In early April the bill passed out of the Assembly with yes votes No lawmakers voted against it Now it heads to the state Senate Such smooth legislative sailing notwithstanding plenty of environmental advocates renewable vigor industry groups construction unions structural engineers and code enforcement representatives have turned out to oppose the bill They see it as a radical upending of the way the state regulates buildings reduces emissions and prepares for a changed situation Opinion Fix California It s cheap housing good job opportunities Building standards need to be nimble because the effects of setting change are unpredictable declared Laura Walsh initiative manager with Save the Bay a nonprofit focused on conservation and preparing for rising seas We ll get to a place in the trend where things get worse really fast she announced 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 The greater part 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 special suburbs dense residential expansion near transit stops or proposed mountain lion sanctuaries that s all about zoning Now a few lawmakers are considering a new deregulatory target Schultz s freeze is the greater part 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 reported 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 indeed there are restrictions in the actual construction process and numerous of those do go back to the building code Where does the code come from California s building code does not originate in California As with the bulk 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 mentioned Eduardo Mendoza a research associate with California YIMBY an organization that promotes more housing enhancement 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 Framers work to build the Ruby Street apartments in Castro Valley on Feb Photo by Camille Cohen for CalMatters These exceedingly arcane deliberations typically receive little attention from the masses The exception is a small cadre of engineers developers architects appliance manufacturers vitality efficiency solar and circumstances 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 competition of regulatory tug-of-war It s all very bureaucratic very dry but still extremely political commented Mendoza Now that behind-the-scenes fight is playing out in population On one side are housing developers Keeping up with the salvo of state and local building code changes is its own full-time job explained Dan Dunmoyer president of the California Building Industry Association a pact group for big builders We had the bulk seismically safe water-reduced fire retardant force efficient homes in the world two years ago and we just keep on adding more and more and more to it he declared At what point do you just take a pause A expected pause is especially appealing to plenty of 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 prospective project another year or two revealed 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 legislators in North Carolina passed a law banning the majority changes through That bill backed by that state s building industry association froze in place a significantly older code than California s particular of North Carolina s strength efficiency rules hadn t been changed since California s so-called code is at this moment in the works and is set to go into effect in January but not if Schultz s measure passes The bill would freeze the current rules in place starting on June The experts who help write the state s building standards have vitality and safety and other criteria in mind but they don t have cost as a factor in their decision making well they should stated 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 strength efficiency rules Ward explained that mining the building code for realizable 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 mentioned 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 difficulty with a sledgehammer when what s needed is a scalpel There s just this idea that if you simplify things in various tactics it will help announced Merrian Borgeson initiative director with Natural Guidance 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 years have added between and to construction costs on each single-family home By far the largest estimated cost with an upper end of was the price tag on the water utility hook-up required for sprinkler systems mandated in new single-family homes since California Maryland and Washington D C are the only state-level jurisdictions with this requirement For apartment buildings alone a national assessment sponsored by the building industry attributed of total expansion costs to changes in the International Code Council model codes since 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 noted in the months before a scheduled code update city planning departments are invariably the scene of a mad rush from developers who are trying to get in before the new rules go into effect Code for cheaper construction Most of of the big ticket changes to California s standards over the last decade have been about resource efficiency and electrification Specific of these requirements have added upfront costs for developers revealed 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 stated He pointed to viable strength code changes that would allow homes to calculate their electricity demands differently potentially saving on costly limit upgrades Those ability code enhancements could save people money on their ability bills and that is part of affordability Why is that comprehensively not considered in this equation It s that prospect of preventing changes to the code that might really save money that has even several 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 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 without obviously elevating fire menace 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 in recent days adopted a new relaxed set of codes for mid-sized apartment buildings a considerable step down from the rules in place in the bulk American cities where they share a set of standards with skyscrapers Smith with the Center for Building noted he understands why someone who just doesn t trust that the building code enhancement process is going to appropriately balance affordability and all the other concerns would aid the bill But it s a little upsetting to see everyone throwing the baby out with the bath water he declared The baby in this episode refers to attainable cost-reducing changes that Smith revealed are more likely to be determined 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 reported Smith Schultz stressed that though the bill has already passed out of the Assembly it remains a work in progress He reported he is in the present negotiating manageable changes to the bill that would allow for a general escape hatch for any proposed changes to the code that might veritably reduce the cost of housing After all he added that is the goal