AB 253

State Land Use Enacted Legislation

Bill #	State	Year	Party	Topic
AB 253	CA	2025	D	Building code reform, By-right zoning, Deadlines, Third-party review, Written findings, burden and standard of proof

Provided by Furman

Summary

If a county/city charges fees for residential building permits, it must create a fee schedule and make this schedule available on the county/city’s website.
Replaced the excessive delay trigger for review of permit applications with a private-review pathway.

Under the amendment, a city/county must give an estimated time frame for determining compliance of a complete permit application.
If the estimate exceeds 30 days OR 30 days pass without a compliance determination, the applicant may hire a private professional provider to review the permit application instead.
If the private party determines the plans comply, the city/county has ten days to issue or reject the permit. If the 10 days pass with no determination by the city/county, the permit is automatically granted.

States that the bill is not intended to prohibit a city or county from providing a self-certification program under different terms so long as they do not conflict with the requirements of the bill.
Cities/counties must add the number of residential permits reviewed in house versus by private providers to their existing annual housing element report.

Provided by lawmakers