Laws & Updates

California lets qualifying multifamily projects skip the conditional use permit and discretionary review entirely — but only if the project meets every one of the state's objective standards. Here is the checklist.

California adopts building standards on a published schedule, with a formal comment period anyone can join. Here is how the cycle works and how to make a comment that actually counts.

California cities can adopt stricter local energy rules, but only after a public cost-effectiveness finding and two separate state approvals — and only ever in the stricter direction.

When a code section says a product must be approved or listed, it is pointing at a separate volume most people never open — the one holding the actual tests for window bar releases, gas shutoff valves, fire doors and curb ramp pads.

AB 2011 turned commercial corridors into housing sites. A qualifying project is a use by right, reviewed against checklists instead of a hearing, at densities the statute sets — and the city has 60 or 90 days to give an answer.

California moved its wildfire-area construction rules into a standalone code. If your property sits in one of those areas, it governs things most homeowners never think of — the width of your driveway, the number on your gate, the water your fire district can draw.

SB 9 lets many California homeowners add a second home, or split the lot in two, without a hearing. The limits are specific — minimum lot sizes, a protected unit size, a ceiling on setbacks and parking, and a hard cap on total units.

California's green building code has two halves: measures every project must meet, and a menu of stricter ones that bind you only if your city adopts them. Knowing which half you are reading changes what your project costs.

Ceilings, walls, floors — even the hatch into your attic. California sets a hard floor on how much insulation goes into a new home, and a slightly easier one when you are remodeling an old one.

Heating and cooling work sits in its own corner of California's rulebook — and that book quietly publishes a list of every job jurisdictions charge a permit for, from a furnace swap to a single bathroom exhaust fan.

Halfway through planning your project, someone says "that changed in the new code." Which code? California's building rulebook is actually thirteen books, rewritten every three years — and your city is allowed to make them stricter, but never looser.