California’s Building Standards Commission has voted to ease barriers to the safe conversion of underused existing commercial buildings. The move has been described by AIA California as “an action that simultaneously addresses the climate emergency and California’s housing crisis.”

The change will amend the California Existing Building Code, and will facilitate three options or “compliance paths” for architects to choose from in adaptive reuse: Prescriptive; Work Area; and Performance. While all three paths satisfy safety requirements, each allows designers different methodologies depending on the particular building challenge. The existing California code only allows the Prescriptive path, however.

Announcing the news, AIA California cited a report from RAND Corporation which found that 2300 underutilized properties across LA County could produce 72,000 to 113,000 housing units if converted, while a separate EIA report found that adaptive reuse could save 50% of the carbon emissions that would be generated from new construction.

“This action is a real catalyst for change that will push the industry forward in rapidly addressing the growing climate emergency,” said William Leddy, Vice President of Climate Action of AIA California, who has been working on the amendments since 2019. “The most sustainable buildings are the ones that are already built. Prioritizing the reuse of existing buildings not only accelerates the reduction of embodied carbon emissions from new construction, it ‘incentivizes’ the industry to address California’s severe housing crisis more quickly and efficiently, creating more sustainable and resilient communities.”

News of the change comes one year after California’s building codes were updated to allow for high-rise mass timber buildings, and months after the ICC updated its own method for updating building codes.