FLORIDA BUILDING COMMISSION

CODE AMENDMENT PROCESS REVIEW WORKGROUP — MEETING III

August 21, 2006

Miami Lakes, Florida

CODE AMENDMMENT PROCESS OPTIONS EVALUATION WORKSHEET

During the meeting, members will be asked to develop and rank options, and following

discussions and refinements, may be asked to do additional rankings of the options as refined. Members should be prepared to offer specific refinements to address their reservations. A four-point ranking scale will be used, and in general, 4's and 3's indicate support and 2's and 1's indicate opposition to the option. A 75% threshold of 4's and 3's will be required for an affirmative recommendation to the Commission. The following scale will be utilized for the ranking exercise(s):

WORKGROUP OPTIONS REVIEW PROCESS OVERVIEW

The following process will be used for Meeting III:

•  Overview of proposed options,

•  Identification of new option(s) (if any),

•  Acceptability ranking of options (new, those with a consensus level of support from the previous meeting, and those a Workgroup member proposes to be re-evaluated),

•  Public comment,

•  Consensus testing on package of recommendations for submittal to the Commission.

Workgroup Members:

Hamid Bahadori, Jeff Burton, Nick D'Andrea, Jack Glenn, Jim Goodloe, Dale Greiner,

Gary Griffin, Jon Hamrick, Kari Hebrank, and Randy Vann.
SUMMARY OF CURRENT CODE AMENDMENT LEGISLATION

Triennial Code Update Process

Florida Statute, Chapter 553.73(6), requires the Commission to update the Florida Building Code every 3 years; by selecting the most current version of the International Family of Codes; the commission may modify any portion of the foundation codes only as needed to accommodate the specific needs of this state, maintaining Florida-specific amendments previously adopted by the commission and not addressed by the updated foundation code.

Expedited Amendment Process—Adopted by the 2006 Legislature at the Commission's Recommendation

(f) Upon the conclusion of a triennial update to the Florida Building Code, notwithstanding the provisions of this subsection or subsection (3), the commission may address issues identified in this paragraph by amending the code pursuant only to the rule adoption procedures contained in chapter 120. Following the approval of any amendments to the Florida Building Code by the commission and publication of the amendments on the commission's website, authorities having jurisdiction to enforce the Florida Building Code may enforce the amendments. The commission may approve amendments that are needed to address:

1. Conflicts within the updated code;

2. Conflicts between the updated code and the Florida Fire Prevention Code adopted pursuant to chapter 633;

3. The omission of previously adopted Florida-specific amendments to the updated code if such omission is not supported by a specific recommendation of a technical advisory committee or particular action by the commission; or

4. Unintended results from the integration of previously adopted Florida-specific amendments with the model code.

Annual Interim Amendment Process

Florida Statute, Chapter 553.73(7), provides that the Commission may approve technical amendments to the Florida Building Code once each year for statewide or regional application upon a finding that the amendment: there is a Florida specific need; has connection to the health, safety, and welfare of the general public; strengthens or improves the Code; does not discriminate against materials, products, methods, or systems of construction of demonstrated capabilities; does not degrade the effectiveness of the Code; and, includes a fiscal impact statement which documents the costs and benefits of the proposed amendment, and shall include the impact to local government relative to enforcement, the impact to property and building owners, as well as to industry, relative to the cost of compliance.

TRIENNIAL CODE UPDATE PROCESS—OPTIONS

OPTIONS SUPPORTED BY THE WORKGROUP

Option— Eliminate the annual interim process, maintain only the triennial and expedited processes. The expedited process can be implemented whenever needed. The criteria for the process would be amended to include updates and changes to federal/state laws.

Members Comments and Reservations (8/21/06):

Option— A triennial code update that coincides with the fire triennial update.

Members Comments and Reservations (8/21/06):

Option— Justification for Florida-specific amendments to the base code should be strictly adhered to.

Define specific needs of the State.

Members Comments and Reservations (8/21/06):

Option— Issue quarterly notices of binding interpretations and declaratory statements. This would be in the form of a technical bulletin section of the Commission's quarterly newsletter.

Members Comments and Reservations (8/21/06):

The TAC's would review proposed code amendments, and after the 45 public comment period on the TAC's recommendations, the TAC would review and make recommendations regarding comments, and then the TAC's revised recommendations would be submitted to the Commission for their consideration in a rule development workshop.

Members Comments and Reservations (8/21/06):

Option— Maintain updates to FBC within 2 years (not more than 2 years) of new editions of the foundation codes and provide for adoption of equivalent product evaluation standards via rule 9B-72. (Establish a policy that the would ensure the updated Florida Building Code would go into effect a minimum of one year before the next edition of the foundation codes on which it is based.)

Members Comments and Reservations (8/21/06):

OPTIONS NOT SUPPORTED BY THE WORKGROUP

Option— Correlation of any proposed amendment with the FFPC and ensuring no expansion of FBC provisions into areas already addressed within the FFPC, and vice versa.

Option— Accept the final electronic version as the printed version. (Based on 120 requirements for adoption) written version without the formatting. Final printed version of the Rule as filed.

Option— The statutes should be revised to allow for a 3-month delay in code implementation from the publication date, rather than the current 6-month delay.

Option— Maintain the policy of law that the updates to the Code would be based on adoption of the current edition of the foundation code but allow a process that would allow changes between successive editions of the foundation codes to be brought into the current edition of the FBC instead of redeveloping the Florida Building Code every update cycle.

(e.g., changes between editions of the foundation codes are automatically adopted unless specific amendments are proposed to eliminate individual ones, except those changes that overlap currently adopted Florida specific amendments, which would then be subjected to review of which provision to adopt into the new FBC via the full Code development and adoption processes).

Option— Do one code change that will bring all codes up to date.

ANNUAL INTERIM AMENDMENT PROCESS—OPTIONS

The Workgroup voted unanimously, 7 – 0 in favor, to recommend that the Commission recommend to the Legislature that the annual interim process be eliminated.

Additional Option A

Members Comments and Reservations (8/21/06):

Additional Option B

Members Comments and Reservations (8/21/06):