Housing or climate concerns?

This will help create development stability, lawmakers have said, citing a particular need to support home rebuilding efforts in Southern California, where fires ravaged large swaths of property earlier in the year. 

But building codes are often a key way for local governments to establish climate resiliency policies like energy efficiency standards, flood protections or seismic safety measures, David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay, said.  

“Building code and safety considerations are a very familiar tool in California for updating our knowledge of how to keep people safe, how to keep buildings secure and translating that knowledge into requirements,” he said. 

In San Mateo County, as flooding becomes a more imminent concern for Bayside and oceanside communities, local climate resiliency entities like OneShoreline have been advocating for local governments to incorporate plans for sea-level rise into their building codes and general plans. 

First-floor elevation, water-resilient building materials, and preparing home openings like doors and windows are all tangible tactics to make buildings safer in the coming years that cities won’t be able to update and require as they rush to meet state-mandated housing requirements, said Len Materman, CEO of OneShoreline, a sea-level rise resiliency agency for San Mateo County.

“When we’re being told, at least in the case right now … we can’t think too deeply about [building codes] for six years, we have to go forward with this development without having the tools to protect ourselves,” he said. 

Jeremy Levine, policy manager at the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County, is asking for a larger cost-benefit analysis that incorporates the positives such legislation could produce, he said. 

In a volatile development market, creating code stability for developers means that California — a state wracked by the impacts of a yearslong housing crisis — will see more housing stock faster. 

In addition, building those multifamily housing units under current development codes — which are already some of the most stringent and environmentally friendly in the nation — will, in turn, benefit the environment via less water use and greater energy efficiency, Levine said. 

“I can say this desire for consistency in an environment where all costs are rising and there’s a lot of uncertainty is part of what motivated the bill. Developers need consistency,” he said. “From an environmental perspective, new multifamily housing is inherently much more sustainable than older development.” 

There’s nuance to incorporating environmental protections while incentivizing housing production, he maintained. 

“There’s a really careful balancing act — how do we make sure we’re setting standards to improve over time and balancing the reality of development, which requires predictability,” he said.