ELK GROVE, CA (MPG) - Elk Grove City Council took the first step Oct. 22 in adopting by reference the 2025 California Building Standards Code by approving the first reading of an ordinance incorporating those requirements, along with local amendments, into the city’s Municipal Code Title 16 relating to building and construction.

The ordinance also amends the city’s Municipal Code Chapter 17 relating to the California Fire Code standards updates. Both code section changes include local amendments.

“I want to emphasize that adoption of this code is forward looking,” Elk Grove Chief Building Official Brian Frenger said at the Oct. 22 City Council meeting. “While we commit to align with the 2025 codes, this action does not preclude us from future adjustments, refinements or targeted amendments as new technologies and industry practices evolve.”

The proposed codes, updated on a three-year cycle, affect 10 Title 16 sections for administration, building, existing building, residential building, historical building, green building standards, energy, plumbing, electrical and mechanical.

Frenger highlighted several areas of the updated state codes to be incorporated, particularly with electric vehicles (EV), electrified buildings and bicycle parking. The codes now require electric vehicles charging infrastructure in new construction, including multifamily dwellings and hotels.

In the continuing effort to move away from fossil fuels, the codes also require “electric-ready” buildings. The requirement means that all new construction must have necessary electrical capacity and conduit to support “future installation of electrical appliances for heating, cooking and water heating.”

In regard to bicycles, short-term parking in non-residential facilities must be increased based on 20% of daily visitors while the long-term parking increased to 10% of tenant occupants or anticipated tenant occupants.

New fire code changes allow for partially sprinklered buildings used in storing energy, along with those storing distilled spirits and wine.

Energy storage buildings include those used for manufacturing lithium-ion or lithium metal batteries and those used to manufacture vehicles, energy storage systems or equipment containing these types of batteries “where the batteries are installed as part of the manufacturing process.”

Other fire code changes include a new chapter for temporary cooking and heating operations and regulations for rooftop storage of hazardous materials.

Several questions arose from council members about providing temporary or permanent water supplies during commercial or residential construction. Mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen said she met with stakeholders in the construction field and read a list of five questions they were asking about the codes, the first being why Elk Grove would be the only jurisdiction to require permanent water supply when other jurisdictions and the state were moving to temporary or permanent.

Section 3307.2 of the California code mandates a temporary or permanent water supply for firefighting purposes be available onsite before combustible materials arrive or before vertical construction begins. The language proposed in the Elk Grove ordinance references the code but allows only a permanent water supply.

Consumnes Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief and Fire Marshal Lantz Rey said the only jurisdiction in the area he was aware of following Section 3307.2 was Sacramento Metropolitan Fire Department. The other three agencies in the area, including Elk Grove, are operating under standards put in place by Elk Grove in 1992, he added, with Elk Grove continuing to do so if they were adopted by council.

“So this would be stronger than the state code?” Singh-Allen asked.

Rey replied, “It is stronger than the state code and has been for years.”

Stakeholder questions also related to water supply included one about exemption language, asking how those are administered and how builders can “trust there will be consistency and equitable use of exemptions and under what circumstances would an exemption be granted?”

“The exemption currently in place now requires the permanent water supply,” Rey said, adding there are some exemptions regarding rural communities and ones added in 2025 by the state for model home complexes.

As for equitability, Rey said they do it all the time.

“That is our practice here,” Rey said. “The building official and his division and CJ (Community Development Director Christopher Jordan) and Community Development, we do this often.”

Rey listed several examples of where the city has granted a temporary supply to development so long as a permanent supply was being phased in under approved fire and building department plans. Exemptions would not be granted under conditions such as a four-story building constructed near a residential property line, Rey said.

Several council members asked about the possibility of delaying passage of the ordinance in order to take a closer look at several proposed changes to determine if more local amendments should be made. City attorney Jonathan Hobbs advised against this approach, urging council to stick to the proposed timeline so the proposed ordinance could go into place on the state’s required date of Jan. 1, 2026.

Hobbs said that council has the ability to revisit those codes at a later date and make modifications. Delaying a vote on the two readings and final passage of the ordinance would risk the state codes taking effect Jan. 1 without the proposed local amendments referenced in the ordinance.

It’s not great practice, Hobbs said, for council to adopt code changes “on the fly” at meetings and there is no downside to passing the ordinance and then returning to those codes later to tweak them.

“There is a downside to not doing it (ordinance passage),” Hobbs added.

City Council voted 5-0 to pass the ordinance’s first reading. A second reading will take place at the Nov. 12 council meeting.