AB 306: abundance agenda misfire

OPINION – The ongoing housing affordability crisis is as dire as the climate crisis. Smart, forward-looking policies must address both, and – at the very least – not worsen one in furthering the other. Unfortunately, California lawmakers did just that.

This summer, AB 306 – a bill that bars any changes to California’s residential building standards until 2031 – was folded into budget trailer bill AB 130 and enacted into law, along with other policies meant to boost California’s housing supply. On its face, the goal of AB 306 is to make new home construction faster and cheaper by freezing changes to statewide building codes and preventing local governments from enacting more stringent “reach codes.”

With this move, California’s Dems attempted to jump with both feet into the “Abundance Agenda” – the governance approach popularized by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson in their recent book, Abundance. The book calls for solving California’s statewide housing shortage by improving government efficiency and reducing barriers to building more. The authors argue that this will bring down the cost of living, enable more climate-friendly infrastructure like high-speed rail and utility-scale renewables, and lead to a better quality of life for all. This is their recipe for undoing decades of housing scarcity while also proving that democratic governance systems can still work.

These are noble goals. But the California legislature’s attempt at Abundance Agenda policy through AB 306 misses the mark.

First, AB 306 ignores the fact that building codes that encourage all-electric construction are a win-win for both housing affordability and the climate – exactly the kind of policies espoused by the Abundance Agenda. This is because all-electric construction is faster and cheaper than building “mixed fuel” homes with natural gas. 

Over the last half-decade, local governments have deployed reach codes to accelerate all-electric, cost-saving construction that can dramatically lower building sector emissions, reduce residents’ energy bills, and improve public health. It’s the same reason why so many affordable housing developers are already building all-electric: they know it is cheaper and they can build more for their money, while also driving down greenhouse gas emissions and improving economic and health outcomes for residents. 

And yet, AB 306 blocks this critical tool for six long years.

Second, if the California Legislature wanted to truly embrace the Abundance Agenda, they should have gone after single-family zoning. While AB 130 contains some smart CEQA reforms that will accelerate urban “infill” housing projects, it ignored restrictive local zoning rules that ban anything but single family homes from being built in an astonishing 96% of the state’s residential neighborhoods. Given this reach, single family zoning is probably the single biggest driver of housing unaffordability in the state.

Ideally, lawmakers would have used exemptions in AB 306 to explicitly further housing and climate goals. While a few exemptions are written into the bill, exactly how they will be applied remains up to the California Building Standards Commission. It’s possible that these exemptions will allow for climate-related and cost-saving building code updates. Potential exemptions include code updates that align with cities’ general plans, streamline administrative processes, or are health- and safety-related. Given this opening, California regulators should prioritize exemptions for building codes that encourage all-electric new construction, along with other cost-saving measures that could help California build more housing for less.

The Abundance Agenda asks policymakers to consider: “Does this policy lead to abundance and better quality of life for all?” AB 306’s approach to block codes that address both the housing and climate crises – at lower costs for builders and consumers alike – is a clear and unfortunate misapplication. Instead, California lawmakers have risked depriving the state and local governments of their ability to pass win-win policies that get us where we want to go.

Jenna Tatum is the Executive Director of the Building Electrification Institute (BEI).