California cities face months of delays in building code approvals

More than a dozen California cities and counties have been trying for months to get climate-forward building standards enacted. But they’ve been caught in regulatory purgatory thanks to legislation meant to address the state’s affordable housing crisis.

Last year, in an effort to ease development, California hit the brakes on updates to state and local building codes meant to make buildings safer and more efficient. But the law that established the six-year moratorium, Assembly Bill 130, left some exceptions for local governments — including a narrow legal pathway to adopt emissions-cutting rules to support their preexisting climate goals.

Since the pause went into effect Oct. 1, 2025, 21 cities and counties have passed such building ordinances. These ​“reach codes” go beyond the state’s energy-efficiency standards in encouraging building owners to ditch fossil fuels. For example, 14 localities have adopted rules to incentivize households to replace broken one-way air conditioners with two-way heat pumps, which provide both heating and cooling. The approach nudges homes toward electrified heating, since when the furnace dies, the installed heat pump is ready to take its place.

Reach codes have the potential to be among ​“the most impactful ordinances” that local agencies can adopt to tackle climate change, said Anthony Eulo, senior manager of public sector services for Silicon Valley Clean Energy, a public energy agency.

Localities must get the green light from the California Building Standards Commission, followed by a thumbs-up from the state energy commission, before they can implement those codes. But as of Friday, the Building Standards Commission has yet to approve 17 proposed reach codes from 15 jurisdictions, including Alameda, Glendale, Marin County, Palo Alto, and San Luis Obispo. Some have been waiting nearly a year.

In the past, the commission’s vetting process took days, not months, Eulo said.

The Building Standards Commission, which must ensure ordinances meet AB 130’s complex exemption requirements, said it has approved seven reach codes over the last year. But the 17 pending ordinances ​“contain more complex amendments and are still under review,” the agency said. ​“We hope to begin issuing response letters soon.” In the last year, the commission has processed 440 ordinances out of about 500 received.

At the commission’s last meeting on Aug. 25, city and county representatives and building decarbonization advocates expressed their frustration at the unusual delay, which is holding them back from reducing noxious pollution from gas appliances.

“Alameda cannot achieve its urgent climate goals and protect the health and safety of our residents without these foundational policies,” Danielle Mieler, the city’s sustainability and resilience manager, said at the meeting.

The delay hampers California’s own goals. Decarbonizing buildings, which account for a quarter of its planet-heating emissions, is key to hitting the state’s climate targets, among them reducing emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by the end of the decade.

Local officials and advocates contend that the ordinances should qualify for an AB 130 exemption, as they align with jurisdictions’ previously adopted greenhouse-gas reduction strategies as part of state-mandated general plans, per the law. Exempted updates are allowed to encourage all-electric appliances so long as they allow for ​“mixed-fuel” construction — meaning they don’t outright ban the use of fossil fuels.

This stipulation ensures new ordinances don’t run afoul of a controversial federal court decision: In 2023, three Ninth Circuit judges ruled that Berkeley, California’s 2019 ban on gas hookups in new buildings conflicted with a federal appliance energy-efficiency law. (That argument, backed by real estate developers and the appliance industry, is flailing in courts elsewhere across the country.)

“These reach codes have been very heavily vetted by their own city attorneys before moving forward at the local level,” Serena Pelka, senior policy advocate at environmental coalition Climate Action Campaign, told Canary Media. ​“So we are very confident that all of the reach codes presented to the commission should be able to move forward.”

Alameda code amendments ​“meet the standard for exception to AB 130,” Mieler told the commission. Her city and others have also worked to address any outstanding concerns. ​“We responded to additional questions posed by the commission about our ordinance in February, but have still yet to receive a decision.”

The questions, reviewed by Canary Media, asked jurisdictions to clarify exactly how their ordinances meet AB 130’s exemption requirements. Mieler has not received any follow-up questions from the commission, she told Canary Media.

The delay is having a chilling effect on decarbonization efforts in other cities and counties across California, according to Colleen Corrigan, sustainability and resilience policy manager at San Francisco Bay Area Urban Planning Research Association, a nonprofit that works with dozens of local governments on housing, transportation, and climate policy issues. Several jurisdictions ​“are considering code adoption locally but have paused their processes due to uncertainty brought on by these delays,” she said at the meeting.

AB 130 was never meant to block local efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Corrigan noted. ​“We’ve spoken with leadership in the Legislature and the governor’s office, both of whom assume that the language in AB 130 cleared a path for building decarbonization and climate resilience updates,” she said. ​“But this has not been the case.”