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.

(

Camille Cohen

/

CalMatters

)

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.

Downtown Los Angeles

A person in an inflatable frog suit holds a sign during a protest in Los Angeles, California on January 10, 2026 against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.

(

Etienne Laurent

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

A woman holds incense during a protest in Los Angeles, California on January 10, 2026 against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.

(

Etienne Laurent

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

A person holds up a sign during a protest in Los Angeles, California on January 10, 2026 against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. (Photo by ETIENNE LAURENT / AFP via Getty Images)

(

Etienne Laurent

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

A person holds up a sign during a protest in Los Angeles, California on January 10, 2026 against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.

(

Etienne Laurent

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

A tourist bus drives past as people protest in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), in Los Angeles, California on January 10, 2026 against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.

(

Etienne Laurent

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

Pasadena

Alison Brett (far right) of La Crescenta at the Ice Out For Good protest in Pasadena on Jan. 10, 2026.

(

Josie Huan

/

LAist

)

Casey Law of South Pasadena at Ice Out For Good protest in Pasadena on Jan. 10.

(

Josie Huang

/

LAist

)

People have been taking to the streets nationwide this weekend to protest the Trump administration's immigration enforcement tactics following the death of Renee Good in Minneapolis, a 37-year-old woman who was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer this week.

At least 1,000 events across the U.S. were planned for Saturday and Sunday, according to Indivisible, a progressive grassroots coalition of activists helping coordinate the movement it calls "ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action."

Leah Greenberg, a co-executive director of Indivisible, said people are coming together to "grieve, honor those we've lost, and demand accountability from a system that has operated with impunity for far too long."

"Renee Nicole Good was a wife, a mother of three, and a member of her community. She, and the dozens of other sons, daughters, friends, siblings, parents, and community members who have been killed by ICE, should be alive today," Greenberg said in a statement on Friday. "ICE's violence is not a statistic, it has names, families, and futures attached to it, and we refuse to look away or stay silent."

Large crowds of demonstrators carried signs and shouted "ICE out now!" as protests continued across Minneapolis on Saturday. One of those protestors, Cameron Kritikos, told NPR that he is worried that the presence of more ICE agents in the city could lead to more violence or another death.

"If more ICE officers are deployed to the streets, especially a place here where there's very clear public opposition to the terrorizing of our neighborhoods, I'm nervous that there's going to be more violence," the 31-year grocery store worker said. "I'm nervous that there are going to be more clashes with law enforcement officials, and at the end of the day I think that's not what anyone wants."

Demonstrators in Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026.

(

Sergio Martínez-Beltrán

/

NPR

)

The night before, hundreds of city and state police officers responded to a "noise protest" in downtown Minneapolis. An estimated 1,000 people gathered Friday night, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, and 29 people were arrested.

People demonstrated outside of hotels where ICE agents were believed to be staying. They chanted, played drums and banged pots. O'Hara said that a group of people split from the main protest and began damaging hotel windows. One police officer was injured from a chunk of ice that was hurled at officers, he added.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned the acts of violence but praised what he said was the "vast majority" of protesters who remained peaceful, during a morning news conference.

"To anyone who causes property damage or puts others in danger: you will be arrested. We are standing up to Donald Trump's chaos not with our own brand of chaos, but with care and unity," Frey wrote on social media.

Commenting on the protests, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told NPR in a statement, "the First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly — not rioting, assault and destruction," adding, "DHS is taking measures to uphold the rule of law and protect public safety and our officers."

Good was fatally shot the day after DHS launched a large-scale immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota set to deploy 2,000 immigration officers to the state.

In Philadelphia, police estimated about 500 demonstrators "were cooperative and peaceful" at a march that began Saturday morning at City Hall, Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson Tanya Little told NPR in a statement. And no arrests were made.

In Portland, Ore., demonstrators rallied and lined the streets outside of a hospital on Saturday afternoon, where immigration enforcement agents bring detainees who are injured during an arrest, reported Oregon Public Broadcasting.

A man and woman were shot and injured by U.S. Border Patrol agents on Thursday in the city. DHS said the shooting happened during a targeted vehicle stop and identified the driver as Luis David Nino-Moncada, and the passenger as Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, both from Venezuela. As was the case in their assertion about Good's fatal shooting, Homeland Security officials claimed the federal agent acted in self-defense after Nino-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras "weaponized their vehicle."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Bob Weir, the guitarist and songwriter who was a founding member of the popular and massively influential American rock band the Grateful Dead, has died. According to a statement from his family posted on his website and social media pages, Weir died from underlying lung issues after recently beating cancer. He was 78.

A member of the Dead for its first three decades, and a keeper of the flame of the band's legacy for three more, Weir helped to write a new chapter of American popular music that influenced countless other musicians and brought together an enormous and loyal audience. The Grateful Dead's touring, bootlegging and merchandising set an example that helped initiate the jam-band scene. Its concerts created a community that brought together generations of followers.

Known to fans as "Bobby," he was born in San Francisco as Robert Hall Parber, but was given up for adoption and raised by Frederick and Eleanor Weir. In 1964, when he was still a teenager, Weir joined guitarist Jerry Garcia in a folk music band, Mother Mcree's Uptown Jug Band. In May of 1965 Weir and Garcia were joined by bassist Phil Lesh, keyboard player Ron "Pigpen" McKernan and drummer Bill Kreutzmann to form an electric, blues-based rock and roll band that was briefly named The Warlocks. After discovering that there was another band using that name, Jerry Garcia found a phrase that caught his eye in a dictionary and in December of that year they became the Grateful Dead, launching a 30-year run over which time they grew into a cultural institution.

Weir was a singular rhythm guitarist who rarely played solos, choosing instead to create his own particular style of chording and strumming that gracefully supported Garcia's distinctive guitar explorations especially during the extended jams which were the heart of the band's popularity.

Lyrics were largely a product of a communal effort between Weir and Garcia, as well as lyricists John Perry Barlow, Robert Hunter, that often blurred the lines between who wrote what. The opening lines to "Cassidy," which first appeared on Weir's 1972 solo album Ace and was played by the Dead on live recordings including the 1981 double album Reckoning, reflect the combination of metaphor, rhyme and storytelling set to memorable melodies that the band's audiences could memorize, analyze and sing along to:

I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream
I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream
Ah, child of countless trees
Ah, child of boundless seas
What you are, what you're meant to be
Speaks his name, though you were born to me
Born to me, Cassidy

Weir's emotive singing, on "Cassidy" and other songs like "Sugar Magnolia," "One More Saturday Night" and the band's unofficial theme, "Truckin', " often included whoops and yells, in contrast to Garcia's calm and steady approach. His occasional tendency to forget lyrics was usually greeted by thunderous applause from fans.

After Garcia's death in 1995, at age 53, the surviving members of the band carried on in various forms and arrangements, the longest running of which was Weir's Dead & Company, which also featured Grateful Dead drummers Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart. Weir and the band concluded their "final tour" in July of 2023, but then returned to the stage for two extended residencies at the Sphere in Las Vegas, in 2024 and 2025.

A self-described "compulsive music maker," in 2018 Weir formed yet another band to mine the depths of the Grateful Dead catalog. It was a stripped-down guitar, acoustic bass and drums outfit that he called Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros. Its members included renowned bassist and producer Don Was.In October of 2022, Weir & Wolf Bros worked with a classical music arranger to present yet another iteration of the Dead's catalog, notable for never being played the same way twice, with a group that largely only plays what's written on the paper in front of them, the 80-piece National Symphony Orchestra.

In a 2022 interview with NPR, Weir explained the reason for that collaboration, and in doing so, seemed to offer a possible explanation for why the band's music stayed so popular for so long: "These songs are … living critters and they're visitors from another world — another dimension or whatever you want to call it — that come through the artists to visit this world, have a look around, tell their stories. I don't know exactly how that works, but I do know that it's real."

After Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, Weir kept the legacy of the Grateful Dead alive, touring with bands that came to include generations of musicians influenced by the group. Here, Weir performs with The Dead at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 2009.

(

Scott Wintrow

/

Getty Images

)

Weir's work to shepherd and sustain the Dead's legacy was rewarded by ever younger generations of Deadheads, the band's loyal following, who attended tour after tour, often following the band from city to city as their parents and grandparents did during in the 1960's, '70s, '80s and '90s.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in March 2025, Weir shared his thoughts on his legacy, as well as on death and dying, that had a hint of the Eastern philosophies that were popular when the Grateful Dead emerged from the peace and love hippie movement of San Francisco. "I'll say this: I look forward to dying. I tend to think of death as a reward for a life well-lived," he said.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Planet Books, a long-running outpost known for its boundless collection of used books, toys, posters and other antiquities, must move — once again — by March or risk closure.

After 27 years in business, owner James Rappaport said the news came last fall from the proprietors of the neighboring Antique Mall II, which, since 2020, has sublet to him a 4,000-square-foot warehouse now cramped with rare tomes and second-hand memorabilia.

Andrew Jurkiewicz, who owns Antique Mall II alongside his partner, Linda, confirmed the move in a phone call Monday. They’re selling their own store, a decision that ran simultaneously to their landlord’s decision to sell the property altogether.

One person familiar with the sale said the listing — which opened in October — has drawn several interested buyers and is expected to enter escrow in the next week. A public record search found the properties, at 1851 to 1855 Freeman Ave., are owned by DPV Properties LLC, which recently moved its address from Seal Beach to out of state.

When reached by phone, one of the owners declined to comment on their reason for the sale.

After their leases end in March, the businesses are expected to vacate. The antique shop, Jurkiewicz said, will relocate to a space at 3588 Palo Verde Ave. — formerly a Joann Fabric and Crafts — under new ownership.

“We’re both tired,” he said of running the 37-year business that he moved into a former plywood business on Freeman Avenue in 2010.

The future of Planet Books, meanwhile, is far more uncertain. Rappaport has been quiet about his plight until now, insisting he didn’t want to “sound any alarms” that might disrupt the flow of business or scare his regulars.

“I don’t want to panic anybody, especially myself. Not really sure what to do, actually,” Rappaport said.

This marks the second time the bookstore has needed to vacate its location since it opened in 1998.

Its first incarnation on East Anaheim Street was a combination of a couple of hundred book crates left behind by San Pedro bookseller Vinegar Hill Books and collectible toys acquired by the store’s former owner, Michael Munns.

Monthly rent at that time was about $2,000 for 1,500-square feet. Today, Rappaport said, the building costs $5,200 a month to rent, with half of it currently vacant.

His search for a new space has spanned the city, even traveling into neighboring Seal Beach, each time running into the same story.

“Twice the money and one third the size,” he said.

It’s also difficult to find something to fit their needs. The current store has a bookstock of easily more than 100,000 titles.

There’s also the trove of toys, postcards, movie posters and other antiquities that line the walls, counters and shelves throughout. In the back area — the workers call it the “nether world” — towering stacks of books form trench lines leading to an aging work computer, limited-edition prints and a bathroom which hasn’t worked properly since they moved there.

Any storefront they find will likely require a “major purge” of inventory, Rappaport said. Planet Books has two music sections and three sections for both science fiction and mystery. He plans to downsize through donations to nearby schools, shelters and prisons.

If the store cannot find a new home, Rappaport said he’ll have to move his inventory into storage, likely at a facility in Stanton.

There’s also the definite possibility the store closes, he said, though workers are more optimistic.

For many, Planet Books has become the bookstore’s bookstore — the book hog’s mud puddle — where the clerks know the difference between Tom Wolfe and Thomas Wolfe and where patrons might lose themselves for the day among cheap out-of-print treasures on Zen and macrobiotics, Armenian dictionaries, Cantonese cookbooks and volumes on Lydia Maria Child, a 19th century abolitionist.

Wherever the store lands, Rappaport said it will be his last move.

“I’m 68, getting old, you know, I don’t need this,” he said. “I can’t retire because I don’t make anything in Social Security. I just want to have a little bit of fun.”