Building codes: the next YIMBY frontier

Everyone’s talking about building codes! Though we have not yet fixed most of the obvious growth control regulations, like zoning, permitting, & procedural review laws, housers are also looking ahead to the more obscure rules that set breakeven construction costs, especially the building code. Though YIMBYs have been looking into building codes since 2020, and scholars long ago archived express regulatory intent to use building codes to shadowban apartments in the 20th century, YIMBYs didn’t have a building code agenda until the 2021 breakout of “single stair” reform popularized by Eliason, Speckert, & Smith, and more recently elevator reform, plumbing, and more. California YIMBY just summarized an excellent UCLA Lewis Center report on how the building code writing process works and how we got where we are now.