April 28, 2025
Senator Aisha Wahab, Chair
Senate Committee on Housing
1021 O Street, Room 3330
Sacramento, CA 95814
Re: AB 306 (Schultz and Rivas) - Oppose Unless Amended
Dear Chair Wahab:
The California Community Choice Association (CalCCA), representing 24 operational community choice aggregators (CCAs) serving more than 14 million people in over 200 cities and counties throughout California, writes to respectfully oppose unless amended AB 306, authored by Speaker Rivas and Assemblymember Schultz, which would impose a moratorium on the adoption or modification of new state and local building standards affecting residential units from June 1, 2025 until June 1, 2031, with limited exceptions.
We commend and share the authors' intent to speed the construction of homes to rebuild after the Los Angeles wildfires and increase housing supply across the state. Streamlining requirements to increase new construction can be accomplished without adversely affecting efforts to advance decarbonization in existing construction, providing homes and businesses that lower cost, increase health, and reduce pollution. These efforts can help the state reach its essential and ambitious decarbonization goals and realize significant clean energy job growth.
To ensure that California can continue to move toward both its housing and environmental goals, we respectfully request the following amendments:
1) Apply AB 306 to new construction only: The current language broadly applies to new and existing homes. If the goal of AB 306 is to increase the housing supply, applying this bill to existing homes does not impact that goal.
By narrowing the bill to new construction, local governments can continue to advance codes like requiring air conditioning units to be replaced by heat pumps when a unit is being replaced. To accomplish this, CalCCA requests the following amendment:
Section 4. Health and Safety Code Section 17958.7 shall be amended as follows:
(c) Commencing June 1, 2025, until June 1, 2031, inclusive, the commission shall reject a modification or change to any building standard affecting a new residential unit and filed by the governing body of a city or county, unless one of the following conditions is met:
2) Clarify that the state and local governments can adopt the 2025 State Building Code: We understand the authors’ intent that the state continue with the adoption process for the 2025 State Building Code, with a pause until the 2031 Code is approved, and that local governments are allowed to adopt the 2025 State Building Code.
The Commission should be allowed to work on the 2031 state building codes before June 1, 2031, in order to proceed with the normal code adoption process for the 2031 code. To accomplish this, CalCCA requests the following amendment:
Section 6. Health and Safety Code Section 18930 shall be amended as follows:
(g) Commencing June 1, 2025, after the adoption of the 2025 State Building Code, until June 1, 2031, inclusive, proposed building standards beyond the state 2025 code affecting new residential units shall not be considered, approved, or adopted by the commission or any other adopting agency, unless either one of the following conditions is met:
(1) The commission deems those changes necessary as emergency standards to protect health and safety. (2) The building standards relate to home hardening and are proposed for adoption by the Office of the State Fire Marshal.
(3) The building standards under consideration would not take effect until Jan 1, 2032.
For these reasons, we must respectfully oppose unless amended AB 306 at this time. We thank the authors for their work and the ongoing dialogue with our members, and look forward to continuing to work on the bill. If you have any questions, please contact Sean MacNeil ([email protected] or 530-400-2496), Director of Legislative Affairs.
Sincerely,
Beth Vaughan
Chief Executive Officer, CalCCA