The Brief

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.

Framers work to build the Ruby Street apartments in Castro Valley on Feb. 6, 2024.

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Camille Cohen

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CalMatters

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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.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

After California lawmakers passed a state housing law that allows taller apartment buildings near train lines, Los Angeles leaders are facing a tradeoff: If they want to delay full implementation of the law, they’ll have to choose some parts of the city to upzone.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 79 into law last year. Starting July 1, the law is set to allow apartment buildings up to nine stories tall to be built next to subway stations and smaller buildings within a half-mile of light rail and rapid bus stops.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and a slim majority of the L.A. City Council had expressed opposition to SB 79, in keeping with the long-standing preference of many city leaders to leave untouched the three-quarters of L.A.’s residential land zoned for single-family homes.

Now, some L.A. leaders are scrambling to pull a delay lever that was built into SB 79. The provision allows cities to put off the law’s broadest effects until 2030, as long as they agree to allow more housing development in certain neighborhoods in the interim.

“If we don't do this, what happens is SB 79 goes into effect full-on,” said Bob Blumenfield, chair of the council’s Planning and Land Use Committee, during a meeting on Tuesday. “I really want to avoid that happening.”

Options for delay

The state law lets cities delay implementation in neighborhoods deemed to be “low resource,” in areas at high risk of fires or sea level rise or are designated as historically significant. Even with those carve-outs, some higher-income neighborhoods near train stops will still be subject to upzoning.

The city’s Planning Department produced a report last week laying out three different approaches for the City Council to delay SB 79. All of them involve local incentive programs that would allow developers to build apartment buildings in neighborhoods currently zoned for single-family homes.

The first option would allow buildings up to four stories tall, while the second and third options would permit buildings up to eight stories.

During the committee meeting Tuesday, homeowners spoke against the changes the new law would bring and the city’s upzoning plans.

“Single-family neighborhoods are where families put down roots — they are the beating heart of Los Angeles and SB 79 runs a stake right through that heart,” said Shelley Wagers with the Beverly Grove Neighborhood Association. “We must use every tool to prevent irreversible harm and buy time.”

Advocates for increased housing development said they favored the report’s third option, which would allow mid-sized apartment buildings within a half-mile of existing train stops, as well as planned stations and rapid bus stops.

Scott Epstein, policy director for Abundant Housing L.A., said that approach “offers the best opportunity to meet our housing targets and ensure that neighborhoods rich in transit services and high-quality schools are doing their part.”

What happens next

The Planning and Land Use Committee could not get a three-person majority to agree on the best path forward, so the decision will now go to the full City Council for further debate.

Blumenfield said his recommendation as committee chair was to allow mid-rise apartment buildings in many neighborhoods, but only near existing train stops, not planned stations or rapid bus stops. He also recommended more exemptions for certain historic preservation zones.

Nithya Raman, a committee member who is also running for L.A. Mayor, said she found the report’s recommendations difficult to follow. Passing a delayed implementation plan could stave off changes in some neighborhoods, but only for a while, she said.

“Eventually we will have to do something,” Raman said. “So the question is just what do we do now and what do we do later.”

But council members have little time to figure out which approach they prefer. City planners told the committee that in order to have a delay ordinance in place by July 1, the council would need to decide what direction to take by early March.

This story was originally published by The LA Local on Feb. 25, 2026.

As federal immigration enforcement raids continue across Los Angeles, a broader demographic of people is stepping up to volunteer their time to monitor and document immigration raids in their neighborhoods, according to Ron Gochez, organizer with the rapid‑response network Unión del Barrio.

“We have senior citizen retirees showing up saying, ‘I’m an old white woman — how can I help?’ We have students from community colleges and universities. We have people who look like longtime activists and people who look like they’ve never done this before,” he said. “It’s solidarity being shown by Angelenos of all shapes, sizes, colors and ages.”

While longtime Latino organizers have led the patrols, their numbers are growing thanks to the new volunteers who aren’t necessarily Latino.

Unión del Barrio has outgrown their usual meeting space at the United Teachers union building in Koreatown, which used to draw a few dozen people.

Along with their patrols, the group supports families impacted by immigration raids and issues real-time alerts over social media.

In late January, the day after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, about 400 people showed up for a training session, Unión del Barrio organizer Ron Gochez said.

“The very next day, we had 1,000 people on a Zoom training for educators — and we couldn’t have more because the Zoom limit was 1,000,” Gochez said.

Organizers in Pasadena expected a few dozen volunteers at All Saints Episcopal Church and were surprised when nearly 800 showed up for the training session, according to Pasadena Now.

For the first time, the majority of volunteers at a recent training session were white, Gochez said.

“I think the administration and ICE thought that by killing Alex (Pretti), that people would be scared and intimidated and would stop participating,” he said.

Instead, it has had the opposite effect.

Other immigrant advocacy groups say they’re seeing a similar surge in support. Representatives at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) and the Immigrant Defenders Law Center report a spike in volunteers, donations, and attendance at “Know Your Rights” workshops.

The legal advocacy group says they’re going to continue sustaining deportation defense, managed information hotlines, and expect that engagement to remain strong as federal immigration enforcement intensifies.

Ron Gochez, a member of Unión del Barrio, speaks to volunteers in South Los Angeles in February 2025.

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Residents living near Koreatown and Pico Union have seen a sharp increase in immigration raids in recent months. Unión del Barrio volunteer, Oscar, who provided only his first name out of concerns over retaliation from the federal government, has seen firsthand the effects of the raids.

“This part of Los Angeles — Pico Union, K-town, MacArthur Park, Westlake — has been hit incredibly hard throughout the last year,” Oscar said, pointing to raids along the El Salvador Community Corridor in Pico Union. “They’ve gone up and down Pico multiple times.”

Westlake, a dense immigrant neighborhood predominantly made up of renters and noncitizen workers, has also been identified as one of the most vulnerable areas in L.A. to ICE raids, according to a county-sponsored study.

Oscar leads patrol training sessions, but before joining Union del Barrio, he patrolled his neighborhood with a friend to report on immigration enforcement. “It just didn’t feel like enough,” he said. “I wanted to be part of a space of dedicated organizers.”

Overall, he’s seen more people working together across racial and gender lines, with a common goal of protecting their communities, helping deliver groceries to impacted famlies, monitor their neighborhoods and feel like they have something to do in the face of the ongoing immigration raids.

Immigration agents detain a man selling flowers in Boyle Heights on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026.

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“People are coming in angry, determined,” he said. “but ultimately I think people feel empowered during the training.”

Unión del Barrio has expanded beyond its usual territory in South Los Angeles and the group now patrols in Boyle Heights, Long Beach, the San Fernando Valley, Beverly Hills and Brentwood, Gochez said.

“We have eyes and ears everywhere,” Gochez said. “I’m very comfortable saying there are thousands of people patrolling in the greater L.A. area.”

Although the group rarely solicits donations, Gochez said they have seen an uptick in funding, which helps cover costs from patrolling and printing “Know Your Rights” flyers and other materials.

Despite the heightened attention, Unión del Barrio has not altered its training curriculum, making sure that volunteers are following the law, but also aware that their safety is not guaranteed when they head out to monitor the immigration raids.

Organizers strongly discourage undocumented individuals or those on probation or parole from participating in community patrols, instead encouraging them to contribute in other ways.

“We’re not trying to become martyrs,” Gochez said. “We don’t want to be arrested, beaten or killed. But there is risk involved.”

The L.A. City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to make permanent a city pilot program that diverts police away from some mental health crisis calls.

Since launching in 2024, clinicians with the city’s Unarmed Model of Crisis Response have handled more than 17,000 calls for service, ranging from mental health crises to wellbeing checks. According to city reports, about 96% of those calls were resolved without police.

“We can’t keep deploying armed officers to handle mental health crisis calls because the outcome is Angelenos paying with loss of life and millions of their tax dollars for legal settlements,” Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who co-authored the motion to enshrine the program, said at Tuesday’s meeting.

According to Hernandez, in 2023, more than a third of LAPD shootings involved someone experiencing a mental health crisis.

Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson said the data from city reports was "incontrovertible and unassailable," showing the program’s success at diverting police and fire first responders away from mental health crisis situations.

Council members said the move to make the unarmed model permanent was also a matter of fiscal responsibility. According to a news release from the offices of Hernandez and Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, on average it costs the city roughly $85 per hour to dispatch LAPD officers, while a response from a UMCR team costs roughly $35 per hour.

Last fall, progressive policy advocacy group LA Forward, convened a summit of local and state officials with the goal of making UMCR permanent and expanding it.

Godfrey Plata, deputy director of LA Forward, told LAist his group was “incredibly excited” to see the city make the pilot program permanent.

Plata said he sees enshrining the program as a first step in expanding the program citywide, which his group hopes to do by the 2028 Olympics.

How the program works

In 2024, the city partnered with three nonprofit organizations — Exodus Recovery, Alcott Center and Penny Lane Centers — to provide teams of trained clinicians in service areas spread across L.A. The teams are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the Police Department’s Devonshire, Wilshire, Southeast, West LA, Olympic and West Valley divisions.

Crisis response workers are trained in de-escalation techniques, mental health, substance use, conflict resolution and more, according to a report on the program from the Office of City Administrative Officer. The teams don’t have the authority to order psychiatric holds for people in crisis, but they can work with them to find help locally, and spend more time on follow up than law enforcement can.

In its first year, Los Angeles’s Unarmed Model of Crisis Response sent teams of unarmed clinicians to  more than 6,700 calls for service, ranging from mental health crises to wellbeing checks. Only about 4% were redirected to the LAPD. Average response times have been under 30 minutes.

Examples of these interactions include members of the teams taking food to a woman who was crying and hungry, working with a business owner to engage with someone sleeping in a parking lot and sitting with a family for nearly three hours to help resolve a conflict involving a relative.

What’s next

The motion approved Tuesday also directs city officials to form a working group made up of the LAPD, the L.A. Fire Department and other agencies to address inefficiencies in the dispatch system. The goal of the working group will be to centralize unarmed crisis response dispatch and improve response times.