Council Members Unsure of an Amendment to State Legislation on Housing
As a whole, the city council is currently uncomfortable with a request to amend pending legislation to allow energy-efficient and other environmental improvements to existing housing stock.
On Tuesday evening, the council heard a request from Councilmember Natalya Zernitskaya, who was formerly joined by Councilmember Jesse Zwick, asking their fellow members to agree to have the city manager send a letter to Burbank Assemblymember Nick Schultz, stating opposition to his Assembly Bill 306 unless it is amended. After debate, the motion to state a position failed with three Councilmembers voting in favor, two voting against, and two abstaining. The motion needed a majority, four members, to vote in favor.
If passed and signed as is, the bill would impose a six-year moratorium beginning June 1 on local and state amendments to building codes for residential construction, except in emergencies. It is an attempt by Schultz and other housing advocates to prevent cities from putting up barriers to creating new housing stock.
The problem, as the City of West Hollywood already articulated in a letter to Schultz, is that—as presently worded—it would prevent cities from making environmental improvements to existing apartment buildings and homes that would allow them to meet their climate goals. These moves are known as ‘reach codes.’
Energy consumption from existing buildings typically ranks among the largest contributors to a city’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Instead, the City of West Hollywood, as well as Zernitskaya, propose the following amendment to the legislation:
“Section 4, 17958.7 ‘(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:’”
By asking Schultz to limit his legislation to new construction, the belief is that it frees cities to continue environmentally retrofitting older and existing buildings. Examples of this work listed in West Hollywood’s letter include:
- “Adopt a building performance standard to improve the energy performance, health, and comfort of large existing buildings
- Adopt reach codes to decarbonize new buildings
- Adopt reach codes to decarbonize existing buildings
- Increase and incentivize EV charging in new and existing buildings.”
Initially, Zernitskaya intended for the letter to suggest support for the bill if amended. However, as Zernitskaya explained in the discussion, additional concerns from constituents led her to change the request to a stronger opposition stance unless it was amended.
Zwick, on the other hand, seemed to soften on his stance on the matter during the discussion. The city attorney’s office recently informed him that rescinding the local building code’s height requirement for new construction would not necessarily trigger the prohibitions outlined in Schultz’s legislation, which was his initial impetus for supporting the amendment.
Moving forward, Zernitskaya requested that, in addition to the amended language above, an exemption for the electrification of existing buildings also be sought in the letter to Schultz.
Mayor Pro Tem Caroline Torosis, the city council’s representative to the Clean Power Alliance (CPA), stated that the CPA is also taking an oppose-unless-amended stance on the bill.
“The current version of the bill has a blanket freeze on amendments to municipal codes, and we feel it would impede the adoption of ‘reach codes’ that would encourage electrification,” Torosis said.
But she was circumspect about the complexity of the issue, saying, “You basically have pro-housing and pro-environment folks at odds with each other.” She added, “I don’t love that we’re weighing into this at all, quite frankly, but I do think as our representative on the CPA … amending the bill to allow municipalities to adopt ‘reach codes’ is pretty important.”
Councilmember Dan Hall raised whether AB 306 would prevent the city from advocating for the allowance of single stairwells in new multi-family housing construction. The state has a long-standing requirement for multi-family buildings to include two stairwells, which housing advocates say has made building design unimaginative, inefficient, and costly.
City Attorney Doug Sloan assured him that there is momentum at the state level already to amend that issue, but Zernitskaya added that, “There is a carve-out that allows the state agency to implement single-stair reform into the building codes.”
Hall was still uncertain as to whether such a carve-out would still allow municipalities to implement single-stair reform. But Zwick, who along with Zernitskaya recently attended a conference call on the matter, explained that there is a movement at the state level to offer municipalities “an alternate pathway to satisfy the current code” on the issue.
When it came to the vote, Zernitskaya had support from Councilmembers Ellis Raskin and Barry Snell. Hall and Torosis abstained, and Zwick and Mayor Lana Negrete voted no. Negrete admitted she simply doesn’t fully understand the issue, while Zwick explained, “While I fully support the goals of decarbonization, I think if we start saying we’re going to oppose it unless they remove all elements of the bill, I’m not sure what we’re doing.”
