The National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS) was founded by the nation’s governors 36 years ago to assist the states in fulfilling their respective building code and public safety responsibilities. In support of its founding purpose, over the past 36 years NCSBCS developed programs that: expanded the number of states with statewide building codes from 4 to 32; developed model legislation and regulations resulting in 36 states developing statewide modular building regulatory systems; with the model building codes, developed both the nation’s model energy code and certification examinations for building officials; produced the nation’s first model building rehabilitation code provisions; served for 26 years as the state and federal government’s monitoring agent for manufactured housing; developed an interstate compact for the regulation of modular buildings; and in the mid-1990’s, established a program to assist states and localities in streamlining their building regulatory processes.

Over the years, Oregon’s active participation in NCSBCS assisted the state:

• in 1974 adopting a statewide building code and regulatory system;

• in 1976 Oregon began participating in the Federal Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards program as a monitoring agent and State Administrative Agency;

• in 1981 adopting and enforcing a statewide building energy conservation code;

• in 1982 the state began participating in National Building Safety Week;

• in 1990 put in place mandatory education and certification program for code enforcement personnel;

• in 1998 running three regional workshops on the benefits of regulatory streamlining and the process that needed to be developed to begin such an initiative and provided the state with streamlining models to consider from elsewhere in the country;

• in 2000, launched the Tri-County Building Services Center to begin streamlining the building regulatory system in the greater Portland area.

Today states are faced with twin challenges: enhancing their economic competitiveness to grow out of a recession while at the same time enhancing the security of their public and infrastructure during the war on terrorism.

These are tremendous burdens on state and local governments at a time of greatly reduced financial and manpower resources.

NCSBCS, working through its governor-appointed delegate members and its members from local government and the private sector, developed a series of national initiatives designed to assist states and their local communities in successfully addressing these twin concerns. These initiatives are described below along with the ways they can assist the citizens of Oregon and the state’s public and private sectors in their recently initiated regulatory streamlining efforts to enhance public safety and both economic development and competitiveness of the state.

In the summer of 2001, NCSBCS brought together its national partners in its nationwide building regulatory streamlining project with the information technology industry to discuss ways in which state and local governments could make better use of information technology to both protect the public and enable their construction community to "build faster, better, safer and at less cost."

That program resulted in the establishing a 42-member private-public sector partnership called the National Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age. As a member of the Steering Committee for the National Alliance, Oregon helped shape the Alliance’s work agenda and shared information on streamlining initiatives then underway in that state.

With funding assistance from its partners and federal agencies, the Alliance developed a series of resources designed to share examples of regulatory streamlining that made effective use of information technology to enhance the efficiency, increase the effectiveness, and lower the cost of oversight by states and localities.

These efforts included:

• The Business Case for Streamlining the Building Regulatory Process

Why streamline? Why restructure an existing building regulatory system in order to effectively apply information technology to that process?

When he came into office in January 2003, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski acknowledged the need for regulatory streamlining of the construction process when he announced his state’s "Regulatory Streamlining Initiative" with its multi-year goal of fostering "a business climate that is balanced by an effective regulatory presence."

Designed to build upon previous regulatory streamlining successes in the state, the project includes a one-stop business permitting project to streamline the building process in the Portland Metro/Tri-County area which can then be expanded statewide.

Governor Kulongoski is not, however, alone in recognizing this need. His colleagues in six other states have noted in their 2003 state-of-the-state and inaugural addresses, this is no longer a time for state and local governments to conduct "business as usual." Greatly reduced financial resources and the depressed nature of the economy have required state and local governments to find ways to serve their public and private sectors more effectively, efficiently, and at less cost.

Businesses are leaving states whose regulatory systems are inefficient and non-responsive to the demands of the global economy where, if a manufacturer misses one product cycle, they are out of business.

Heightened security demands have meant it has become critical for governmental agencies to be able to rapidly and securely share information about their critical infrastructure both between those agencies within that jurisdiction and with other jurisdictions that may be called upon to come to their mutual aid during a manmade or natural disaster.

The National Alliance has compiled from across the nation (including Oregon’s strong case) and posted on their website, examples of the business case for regulatory streamlining and effective uses of information technology to address the above concerns.

This information is helping jurisdictions work with their private sector and citizens to build support for and then undertake regulatory streamlining and the purchase and use of information technology to help the community enhance public safety and reduce the regulatory cost of construction.

While Oregon has already launched its statewide streamlining initiative, the business case will be useful in communities outside of the Portland Metro/Tri-County as they take steps in the near future to streamline their regulatory systems.

• Model Streamlining Processes and Procedures

The Alliance also has gathered and posted on its portion of the NCSBCS website examples of successful building regulatory streamlining processes drawn from across the United States.

These include basic restructuring of building code departments; consolidation of regulatory authority; one-stop permitting processes; simultaneous plan reviews; and elimination of areas of overlapping and conflicting regulatory authority between governmental agencies and between different levels of government.

Model processes and procedures from jurisdictions in Oregon and information on the state’s One Stop Business Process initiative are included in the database. The Alliance’s database of streamlining models drawn from across the nation will be especially helpful to communities outside the Portland Metro/Tri-County area as they undertake regulatory streamlining.

• Enhanced Use of Information Technology to Reduce the Regulatory Cost of Construction

Included in the Alliance’s website are listings of available hardware and software that state and local governments are successfully applying to their building regulatory systems to reduce the amount of time it takes to process permits, conduct plan reviews, schedule and conduct inspections, and carry out other administrative and regulatory tasks.

The Alliance provides contact information as to who to talk to in jurisdictions that have successfully procured and now use information technology in the above regulatory processes and information on how jurisdictions have funded the acquisition of such hardware and software. Several local jurisdictions in Oregon will be in the database soon.

Included in the database is information on the financial, manpower, and time savings that have been achieved by both the jurisdiction and their clients in the construction community and the general public.

The Alliance shortly will add to its website model procurement guidelines to assist state and local government in assuring that the hardware and software they procure will perform the tasks for which it is needed. In coming months the Alliance will begin working with the software industry to establish standards to make their products interoperable. (See the May 28, 2003, minutes of the Alliance’s Technology Task Force on the Alliance’s website.)

The above resources will be useful to Oregon communities that have not yet considered using information technology to help streamline their regulatory systems. The development and application of standards making all hardware and software interoperable will help to significantly lower the cost and enhance the usefulness of information technology in Oregon’s building regulatory process.

• Enhanced Use of Information Technology to Assure Better Code Compliance

Regulatory streamlining IS NOT regulatory abandonment. Streamlining means more effective and efficient regulatory oversight of the building design and construction processes through the identification and elimination of areas of regulatory overlap, conflict, and duplication within a state and its local jurisdictions.

The elimination of such conflict and duplication significantly facilitates the construction industry’s ability to comply with structural and seismic safety, accessibility, energy conservation, plumbing, electrical, mechanical and other code requirements.

Computers, software programs, voice-activated response systems, video conferencing, PDAs, and plasma screens for plan reviews, all are powerful tools to assure better code compliance.

Information technology shortens the time frame for plan review and inspection processes that used to be bogged down with paperwork or take days to schedule and conduct. I.T. can eliminate the log jam of paperwork that was difficult to track and made it impossible to conduct simultaneous reviews.

The job of the National Alliance is to help communities identify ways in which their regulatory system can be improved, identify streamlining practices that might be applied to address them, and, once streamlining has taken place, the hardware and software that can be acquired to reduce the time it takes to assure compliance with the building codes and standards adopted by that state and or local government.

The Alliance’s streamlining tool kit also includes successful examples of building public-private partnerships within the state or locality to support and adequately fund regulatory streamlining and the subsequent purchase and use of appropriate information technology. These are all tools that will be helpful to communities in Oregon. In the longer term, online plan review tools especially will be useful in enhancing future compliance with the state’s building codes.

• Enhanced Use of Information Technology to Assist in Homeland Security – A Secure First Responder Database

As noted in a white paper produced by the Alliance (see website), had the first responders at the World Trade Center had access to basic as-built design information on those facilities, evacuation plans, and contact with the designers and engineers who built those structures, hundreds more lives would have been spared in that disaster.

A streamlined building regulatory system can make it possible for information technology to be used to store basic building design information and other critical security related data and then provides the basis to effectively share within a jurisdiction and between jurisdictions, all of the critical life safety information that first responders will need as they roll up on a disaster site.

The Alliance currently is finalizing its efforts to design and field test in one or more states a secure database for first responders of as-built designs, building evacuation plans, and other key contact information. NCSBCS and the Alliance are exploring with governments and the Metro Area Fire Chiefs the possibility of the greater Portland, Oregon, region being one of those test sites.

• Seeking Federal Matching Grants to Aid Jurisdiction in Regulatory Streamlining

Lastly, the National Alliance is working with its 42 partners, including federal agencies, to develop model grant criteria and identify funding sources for a three-year project that offers matching grants to states and their localities to either launch or support existing regulatory streamlining initiatives that make effective and efficient use of information technology to enhance public safety and economic competitiveness in our nation. The Alliance already has been exploring grant funding to help support Oregon’s One-Stop Business Permitting Project.

Other NCSBCS member benefits to states enjoyed by Oregon include:

• Access to online Directory of Building Codes and Regulations for states and major cities.
• Participation in NCSBCS standing committees.
• Federal government legislative/regulatory updates.
• Interchange with other state chief building regulatory officials.
• Monthly "Important Issues" conference calls on topics such as homeland security, night club disasters, ISO rating schedule.
• Opportunity to coordinate public policy positions with other states and provide input to Congress and federal agencies on pending federal legislation/regulations.

In 2000 Oregon offered to host the NCSBCS 36^th Annual Conference in 2003. All of the above Alliance and NCSBCS initiatives will come together in Portland, Oregon, this October 19-22 in the Joint NCSBCS/AMCBO Annual Conference and Third National Forum on Building Smarter in the Digital Age which will be held at the Portland Downtown Marriott. As a member of the Conference, this will be the first time Oregon hosts a NCSBCS annual conference and brings all of the work of the Conference and its members to the Pacific Northwest.

Hosted by Governor Kulongoski’s Delegate to NCSBCS, Mark Long, Administrator Building Codes Division, Department of Consumer and Business Services; and Mayor Katz’s representative to AMCBO, Ray Kerridge, Director, Portland’s Bureau of Development Services, the October 19-22 meeting will showcase for the nation Oregon’s own model streamlining initiatives and the above tools and resources of the National Alliance.

The program also will share national expertise on other issues of critical importance to jurisdictions and the construction community in Oregon that include:

• building rehabilitation codes,

• adopting a compatible set of uniform construction codes,

• education and training of building officials,

• the use of safety sensors in buildings,

• innovative technologies for seismic safety and retrofit,

• effective coordination between building and fire departments,

• effective state and local responses to night club oversight, and

• the resources available to states and localities from the 170-member The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP) to assist them in better preparing for and responding to manmade and natural disasters.

If your state hasn’t been actively involved in NCSBCS, then coming to Portland will give you an ideal opportunity to assess for yourself the benefits of becoming active in the Conference.

REGISTRATION FORMS AND DETAILED INFORMATION ON THE OCTOBER 19-22, 2003 JOINT NCSBCS/AMCBO ANNUAL CONFERENCE AND THIRD NATIONAL FORUM

Click here for registration forms and detailed information on each of the programs to be held during the Joint NCSBCS/AMCBO Annual Conference and Third National Forum on Building Smarter in the Digital Age or contact Carolyn Fitch at NCSBCS, 703-481-2038.

Click here for the National Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform information, background materials, database of hardware and software, and models.