RAND California New Construction Background

Construction categories are defined as follows by the Construction Industry Research Board:

RESIDENTIAL:

Single-Family Housing: Includes detached, semi-detached, rowhouse, and townhouse units. Rowhouses and townhouses are included when each unit is separated from the adjacent unit by an unbroken ground-to-roof party or fire wall. Condominiums are included in single-family when they are of zero-lot-line or zero-property-line construction; when units are separated by an air space; or, when units are separated by an unbroken ground-to-roof party of fire wall.

Multi-Family Housing: Includes duplexes, 3-4-unit structures, and apartment-type structures with five units or more. Multi-family housing also includes condominium units in structures of more than one living unit that do not meet the above single-family housing definition.

NONRESIDENTIAL (Private):

New Commercial: Includes new hotels and motels, office and bank buildings, stores and other mercantile buildings, parking garages, service stations, and amusement and recreational buildings.

New Industrial: Includes manufacturing plants and affiliated buildings.

Other New Nonresidential: Includes churches and religious buildings, hospitals and institutional buildings, schools and educational buildings, residential garages, public works and utilities buildings, and miscellaneous nonresidential structures.