(a) No later than December 31, 2024, the Department of Housing and Community Development shall convene a working group, including, but not limited to, the California Building Standards Commission, Energy Commission, State Fire Marshal, Public Utilities Commission, local government representatives, and stakeholders, to identify challenges to, and opportunities that help support, the creation and promotion of adaptive reuse residential projects statewide while not reducing minimum health and safety standards, including identifying and recommending amendments to state building standards. Each entity shall provide input relative to its area of expertise and oversight.

(b) The working group may consider the following issues:

Terms Used In California Health and Safety Code 17921.9

(1) Energy and insulation upgrades.

(2) Fire-rated assemblies.

(3) Water and sewer piping.

(4) Energy infrastructure, including individual utility meter upgrades.

(5) Habitability.

(6) Any other local or state building requirement that may render the conversion or reuse of an existing building financially infeasible for residential uses.

(c) No later than December 31, 2025, the Department of Housing and Community Development shall provide a one-time report of its findings to the Legislature in the annual report required by Section 50408.

(d) If the working group identifies and recommends amendments to building standards in the report described in subdivision (c), the Department of Housing and Community Development and other state agencies within the working group with authority to propose adoption of building standards shall research, develop, and consider proposing for adoption by the California Building Standards Commission adaptive reuse building standards within each agency’s respective authority for the next triennial update of the California Building Standards Code that occurs on or after January 1, 2026, and, if available, the next intervening code adoption cycle that commences on or after January 1, 2025.

(e) For purposes of this section, “adaptive reuse” shall have the same meaning as in Section 53559.1.

(Added by Stats. 2023, Ch. 743, Sec. 2. (AB 529) Effective January 1, 2024.)