VELAR has opened its digital library of circa 1970-to-1990 California building and accessibility standards to share with all interested building and accessibility professionals. Many of the historical records to be released are cited in senior partner Lonnie Haughton’s paper chronicling the “History and Backstories of California’s ‘1985 State Building Code’”
As summarized by Mr. Haughton, the 396-page ‘1981 State Building Code’ adopted by the State Building Standards Commission was followed by a separate 460-page ‘1984 Annual Supplement to the State Building Code’.These two California codes were then compiled into the comprehensive 756-page ‘1985 State Building Code’, which contained broad sets of public accessibility and privately funded housing adaptability regulations that long preceded the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988.
AVELAR previously released scanned copies of the 1981 State Building Code and 1984 Annual Supplement to the State Building Code and now releases a high-quality scan of the 1985 State Building Code.
(Our next release will be a copy of the 1984 “Disabled Access Regulations Interpretative Manual”published by the Office of the State Architect and the Department of Rehabilitation.)
