The 2025-26 California Spending Plan: Housing, Homelessness and Local Government

Oct 22, 2025 - Building Standards. Chapter  22 imposes a six-year suspension (through mid-2031) of new residential-building standards by both the state and local governments, with specified exceptions for standards pertaining to health and safety and certain other exceptions.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5082

The 2019-20 Budget: What Can Be Done to Improve Local Planning for Housing?

Feb 20, 2019 - Form dictates building height and bulk, the share of land covered by buildings, and the distance of buildings from neighboring properties and roads. Rules about form effectively determine how many housing units can be built on a particular site.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3938

The 2022-23 Budget: The Governor's Housing Plan

Feb 14, 2022 - For example, (1)  these types of buildings were built to different code requirements and must be updated to residential building codes; (2)  older buildings may need updating to meet seismic standards for residential occupancies, as well as remediating materials that pose environmental hazards, such as asbestos and lead ‑based paint; and (3)
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4535

California's High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences - Why Doesn’t California Build Enough Housing? [Video]

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Why Doesn’t California Build Enough Housing? March 17, 2015
https://lao.ca.gov/Videos/Player?playlistId=20&videoId=138

Climate Change Impacts Across California - Housing

Apr 5, 2022 - California Green Building Standards Code (CALGreen). Among other components, the CALGreen state ‑mandated building code includes requirements that new and certain retrofitted homes meet higher water efficiency standards for their outdoor landscapes.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4584

Perspectives on Helping Low-Income Californians Afford Housing

Feb 9, 2016 - By far the largest of these programs is the federal and state Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), which provides tax credits to affordable housing developers to cover a portion of their building costs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3345

The 2019-20 Budget: Considerations for Governor's Proposals to Address Homelessness

Feb 21, 2019 - Supportive housing also typically takes years to site and build. Balancing out the higher costs and long implementation time is the fact that recipients of these programs are less likely to fall back into homelessness.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3942

The 2019-20 Budget: Considerations for the Governor's Housing Plan

Feb 20, 2019 - Ultimately the Governor aims to solicit affordable housing developers to build demonstration projects on excess state property that use creative and streamlined approaches to building (for example, using modular construction).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3941

Climate Change Impacts Across California - Crosscutting Issues

Apr 5, 2022 - Traditionally, land ‑use decisions —such as where to construct housing, locate public buildings such as schools, or build roads —were informed by historical trends, such as how often an area had flooded in the past.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4575

California's High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences - Consequences of California's High Housing Costs [Video]

They make recommendations to the Legislature to address this housing shortfall by changing policies to facilitate significantly more private home and apartment building in California 's coastal urban communities.
https://lao.ca.gov/Videos/Player?playlistId=20&videoId=139