What are some essential features of Bitcoin classic? I already know about the 2MB block size increase. I would like to know more about who controls the code base, what the other proposed changes are, and those kinds of things.
According to https://bitcoinclassic.com/ there are no additional patches except the blocksize increase yet.


  It starts as a one-feature patch to bitcoin-core that increases the blocksize limit to 2 MB. We will have ports for master and 0.11.2, so that miners and businesses can upgrade to 2 MB blocks from any recent bitcoin software version they run.


In the times of git, nobody really controls a code base, it is just out there. The essential question is: What version is run/accepted by the majority of nodes (miners, merchants, users, ...).  You should read about hardforks if you haven't.