Housing and Climate Action Among Priority Bills AIA California Takes Positions On

Each year, AIA CA takes positions on legislation that impacts the profession, whether that impact could be positive or negative.

Due to the nature of the AIA California Board of Directors meeting schedule this year, our three committees that review legislation – the Advocacy Advisory, Housing, and Climate Action – were tasked with identifying any bills that were a priority to weigh in on earlier in the process.

There are a number of reasons why these bills were flagged as priority, including:

AIA California wants to ask for specific amendments. We do not want to blindside authors with amendment requests at the last minute in the process.The bill aligns with one of our priority areas identified in our various policy statements (i.e. housing and climate action) and it is important that we are active in promoting it.We want to be able to support our allied partners in advancing their priorities that align with ours to further develop those relationships.A legislator’s office has actively reached out to us asking for our support.

Using these filters, these committees identified six bills for the AIA California Executive Committee to review and vote on AIA CA’s official positions.

These bills include the following:

Two bills that seek to provide tools for streamlining adaptive reuse to housing, AB 2909 and AB 2910 by Assemblyman Santiago. The first seeks to expand access to tax incentives for adaptive reuse projects and the second allows local jurisdictions to make adaptive reuse projects more feasible through alternate building regulations.SB 937, by Senator Wiener seeks to aid in the production of new homes by delaying the payment of development fees imposed by a local government until the certificate of occupancy is issued, and extending housing entitlements issued prior to January 1, 2024 and set to expire on or before December 31, 2025 by 24 months.SB 1207, by Senator Dahle would broaden the scope of the Buy Clean California Act to include all insulation types, not just mineral wool board insulation, as it currently does. This will allow “apples-to-apples” comparison of the Global Warm Potential (GWP) of competing insulation products for a particular application.AB 2433 by Assemblymember Quirk-Silva seeks to address lengthy delays in the building permit process by introducing flexibility in fee structures, inspection timelines, and the conditional utilization of private professional services.AB 2243 by Assemblymember Wicks amends the language of the Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act of 2022 (AB 2011, Wicks). These amendments facilitate the implementation of AB 2011 by expanding its geographic applicability and clarifying aspects of the law that are subject to interpretation.

For more information on these bills and AIA CA’s positions click here.

The AIA California Board of Directors will be voting to take positions on the remaining recommendations from the legislation review committees at the board meeting on May 31, 2024.