California has no Group I-2 'Condition' — the 2026 errata says so

Search your plan notes for "Condition 1"

Here's a fast test. Open your healthcare boilerplate and search for "Condition 1" or "Condition 2." If either one sits next to Group I-2, Group I-1, Group R-4, or Group R-2.1, you're citing a ghost — a model-code subclassification California never adopted.

The model IBC splits hospital and nursing-home occupancies (Group I-2) — and Groups I-1 and R-4 — into "Condition 1" and "Condition 2." California doesn't. It organizes Group I-2 around the smoke compartment instead. A handful of those model "Condition" tags survived into the first printing of the 2025 codes anyway, and the January 2026 errata went through and pulled them out.

What California actually adopted

In California, the controlling variable for an I-2 building isn't a Condition — it's the smoke compartment. Section 407.5.1 sets the ceiling.

Verified against the live code text: CBC §407.5.1 reads, "Stories shall be divided into smoke compartments with an area of not more than 22,500 square feet in Group I-2 occupancies." No Condition. No exception. (2025 CBC, Part 2 Vol 1, with January 2026 errata.)

That logic runs through the whole section. Nursing-home housing units and cooking facilities (407.2.5, 407.2.6) are limited to 30 care recipients per smoke compartment — not by a Condition number. Automatic smoke detection (407.9) points at the Section 907 smoke-detection provisions, not a Condition. The smoke compartment is the unit of design, and the errata makes the printed code read that way cleanly.

The sweep, book by book

The official bulletin is blunt about it. BSC Information Bulletin 26-01 says the Chapter 4 sections were revised "to remove Condition 1 and Condition 2 from Group I-2 Occupancy groups as California does not use those classifications."

In the California Building Code (Part 2, Vol 1) the cleanup landed on, among others:

• 403.4.8.1 (equipment room) and 404.5 (smoke control) — Condition 2 struck from the exceptions
• 407.2.5 / 407.2.6 — Condition 1 struck from nursing-home housing and cooking
• 407.5.1 — exceptions removed
• 407.9 — Group I-2 Condition 2 and its two exceptions removed
• 508.3.1.2, 710.5.3, 907.5.2.1, 1013.6.3 — Condition 2 removed from occupancy text, pass-through openings, audible alarms, and exit illumination
• 903.3.1.3 — Group R-4, Condition 1 removed from the NFPA 13D sprinkler rule

In the California Fire Code (Part 9) the same scrub ran through 203.7.2.1 (I-2 Conditions), 203.9.4.1/.2 (R-4 Conditions), Chapter 4 (R-2.1 Condition 2), 603.5.1.1, 805.2.1.1/807.4, 906.1, 907.5.2.1/.3, 1010.2.12.1, 1025.1, and Chapter 11. Stray Group I-1 references — another classification California folds into R-2.1 — got pulled in the same pass.

Why this isn't just deletion-happy

Here's the part that should earn your trust: the errata did not delete Conditions wholesale. It left them exactly where California genuinely uses them.

Group I-3 keeps the full system. CBC §308.4 still classifies detention and correctional buildings as Condition 1 through Condition 9 — California even adds Conditions 6 through 9 as state amendments. Conditions are real here; they describe how locked the egress is.

Existing healthcare keeps Condition 2. The Fire Code's existing-building chapter still says "Group I-2, Condition 2" — for example §1103.5.3, which ties a retroactive sprinkler requirement to existing Condition 2 hospitals. That term survives on purpose.

So the move was surgical: pull the model "Condition" tags out of new-construction I-2, I-1, and R-4, but keep them for I-3 detention and existing I-2 hospitals. Wholesale deletion would have broken live requirements; this didn't.

What it means for your next submittal

If your corrections letters, plan notes, or basis-of-design memos map a California new project to an I-2 "Condition," stop. Reframe the analysis around the smoke compartment — its 22,500-square-foot cap, its 30-care-recipient limits, its smoke-barrier scheme. The answer almost never changes; the citation does, and on an HCAI/OSHPD submittal a ghost citation is an easy correction to avoid. Where a project rides a Condition-dependent edge — existing I-2 work, or anything touching the Fire Code's existing-building chapter — confirm the current section text with your local jurisdiction before you lean on it.

What CrossBeam does with it

CrossBeam reads a California healthcare project against the classifications California actually adopted — smoke compartments for new I-2, Conditions only where I-3 and existing buildings still use them — so a citation never points at a subclassification the code doesn't carry. When an errata quietly retires a term, the read tracks the live text instead of the leftover.