Guide to Changes in State Law

Overview

Guide to Changes in State Law

As CALBO’s Legislative Team prepares for the second year of the 2025-2026 Legislative Session, CALBO members, and our local jurisdictions are preparing for recently signed legislation to officially become enacted in 2024. To help our members prepare for the changes in law, CALBO’s Legislative Team is working on publishing a guide to the newly signed laws, which can be found below. The goal of this effort is to provide short articles about the major laws and what they will mean for our membership on the ground.  

These articles include specific details of the laws and provide guidance on best practices that local jurisdictions can use to assist in compliance with the law while providing the best service to your communities. To be clear, this is not legal advice, so we strongly encourage you to reach out to your city attorneys should you have any further legal questions on the new laws.

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Pre-Approved ADU Plans
AB 1332: Accessory dwelling units: preapproved plans

As is an annual tradition in the California legislature, elected officials passed a new law regarding Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) in California in 2023.  In our final installment of this year’s “Guide to Changes in State Law”, we cover a significant bill that CALBO actively worked on through the legislative session to address California’s housing crisis, while maintaining local control.  AB 1332 by Assemblymember Juan Carrillo a former city planner and the new chair of the Assembly Local Government committee, requires local jurisdictions to adopt a program for the preapproval o

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Enforcing New Temporary Sleeping Cabin Legislation
AB 42: Tiny Homes: temporary sleeping cabins: fire sprinkler requirements

As California continues to struggle with its homeless crisis, the state is looking at ways to expand transitional and temporary housing to address the estimated 172,000 individuals who sleep on the streets daily.  One approach to handle this crisis has been a push from Sacramento to build temporary housing such as tiny home villages across the state.  Unfortunately, this approach has led to the passage of legislation that reduces safety requirements for some of these temporary sleeping cabins through AB 42.  This bill was CALBO’s top bill fight this year and unfortunately, th

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Residential Housing in Community College Districts
AB 358: Community college districts: student housing

As California continues to face a severe housing crisis, especially on college campuses, the California State Legislature has looked at different solutions to increase housing production on college campuses.  This year, the legislature passed a bill that further exempts some residential housing from bureaucratic red tape by granting community colleges the ability to skip permitting from the Department of General Services (DGS) for residential student housing and instead task local governments with the permit review and approval of new residential housing in a community college district

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Addressing Substandard Buildings
AB 548: State Housing Law: inspection

Due to California’s rising costs for housing, multiple media reports across California discuss how some landlords are renting substandard buildings for low rent in Silicon Valley and other larger urban areas of California.  In response to these unfortunate circumstances, the legislature officially passed a policy for local governments to develop policies and procedures to inspect multiple units that have grotesque building code violations.  In CALBO’s first installment of the 2024 Guide to Changes in State Law, we first cover AB 548 which was signed into law this fall.  AB 54

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Accessory Dwelling Units
SB 897: Accessory Dwelling Units: junior accessory dwelling units

As California continues to look at ways to provide more affordable housing for low-income Californians and reduce the costs to renters and homeowners, an issue area that has been a consistent topic for just under a decade is the establishment of new laws around Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) and Junior Accessory Dwelling Units (JADU).  In the fifth installment of CALBO’s “Guide to Changes in State Law,” we will focus on the most recent law passed to increase ADU development in the state.  As what feels like an annual tradition in Sacramento, California passed yet another new law o

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Permit Fee Caps Solar Energy Systems
AB 1124: Solar Energy Systems

In the fourth installment of “Guide to Changes in State Law”, CALBO’s Legislative Team is going to take a trip back to another common legislative issue: solar energy systems.  In our first installment of the project and one of the most prevalent bills impacting local building departments, we discussed SB 379.  The California Energy Commission also hosted a public workshop on the reporting requirements for the bill which can be found here.  This article will cover another issue to further reduce the costs of solar e

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Electric Vehicle Charging Stations
AB 970: Planning and zoning: electric vehicle charging stations: permit application: approval

In the second installment of the “Guide to Changes in State Law” CALBO’s legislative team provides some guidance on one of the hot topics in California politics: electric vehicles.  Every year, it seems like there are anywhere from 5-10 bills that the legislative team tracks and advocates on behalf of CALBO members about this issue.  In 2022, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) took the unprecedented step of banning the sale of gas-powered vehicles for new cars by 2035 to help address the 40% of carbon emissions that comes from the transportation sector every year in Califor

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Automated Permitting for Solar Energy Systems
SB 379: Residential Solar Energy Systems: Permitting

As 2022 winds down, CALBO’s legislative team is gearing up for the start of the new legislative session which will officially kick off January 1, 2023. Despite the excitement of a new legislative session for CALBO, the start of a new session brings forward the official enactment of California’s new laws that will impact your building departments.  Before the new year begins, CALBO’s legislative team will provide several articles to provide guidance to our membership about some of the new changes to state law that will impact your departments.