California Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed into law a budget bill for the state with many pro-housing provisions, including a six-year pause on adopting or amending new home building codes.

The provisions are meant to address the state’s housing affordability crisis, the worst in the U.S., and ease the immense frustration of Los Angeles residents who lost their homes in devastating fires in January. By one local news account, fewer than 100 home rebuilding permits have been issued out of more than 1,200 applications.

The $321 billion budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, which began July 1, included a series of trailer bills. One of the trailer bills, AB 130, contained provisions that California home builders have been fighting for all year.

AB 130 prevents the state of California from considering, approving, or adopting any changes to residential building codes until June 1, 2031, except in emergency situations or in the case of wildfire mitigation. Further, the bill prevents local municipalities from amending their code during the same period.

The bill also places new restrictions on changes the state can make to building codes during the “Intervening Cycle,” an 18-month period after the publication of a code when amendments are added to the code before adoption. The intervening cycles have been successfully targeted for years to get onerous changes through, especially to the state’s Green Building Code.

The California Building Industry Association (CBIA) had been championing the provisions since January, working closely with Assemblymember Nick Schultz and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas.

“This is a huge win for us and for home buyers and renters in the state,” said Chris Ochoa, CBIA’s senior counsel for codes. “We are interested to see if this can serve as a model for other states.”

Ochoa noted that while the code pause will be a massive help in the immediate term, there are other longer-term provisions worthy of attention.

Production home builders and developers got a big boost from a provision allowing builders to use the building codes in force when a model home is approved for up to 10 years when building other homes with the same blueprints. This gives builders and developers a full decade to complete a development without necessitating a building code change between phases.

AB 130 and its companion SB 131 also focus on how proposed housing projects interact with the California Environment Quality Act (CEQA), which requires extensive review before permits are granted. The suite of provisions is aimed at streamlining permitting and minimizing CEQA impact through exemptions.

For example, in-fill housing proposals of under 20 acres are now exempt from CEQA review if the project adheres to local zoning, with Builder’s Remedy Projects limited to five acres. And local rezoning efforts are exempt from CEQA review as part of a local agency’s implementation of an approved housing element.

It remains to be seen if these urgent provisions can be expanded to other states. But California’s change of direction on building codes and permit reviews can be seen as a sign that anything is possible if there is political will.