Washington, D.C., April 22, 2004. The Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age, a public/private sector partnership, released today at the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Research Conference on Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing, a report summarizing progress being made by the Alliance in conjunction with HUD, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of Energy, American Institute of Architects and other partners in promoting the effective use of information technology to help streamline the nation’s building regulatory system.

Formed in the summer of 2001, the Alliance, with federal and state grants and in-kind service funding from its members, has held a series of conferences and developed materials that promote greater effective use by state and local jurisdictions of information technology in their building regulatory processes. The mission of the Alliance is to enhance public safety and promote America’s economic competitiveness by enabling the nation’s construction industry to build faster, better, safer and at less cost. The National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards, Inc., serves as the Alliance’s secretariat.

Among the recent work products of the Alliance highlighted in the April 22 report are:

• The update of Model Procurement Requirements for state and local governments to acquire information technology to include provisions that such hardware and software be interoperable. (The earlier version of this model has been endorsed by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers – NASCIO.)

• A HUD-funded cost/benefit matrix for home builders and jurisdictions to use to ascertain savings achieved by building the same home in two jurisdictions – one that has streamlined its building regulatory process using I.T. and the other that has not.

• Draft criteria for federally-funded matching grants to state and local governments to streamline their building regulatory processes.

• Model streamlining enabling legislation and streamlining processes for state and local governments to adopt.

• A Business Case for Regulatory Streamlining that describes $15 billion in annual savings to the construction industry and government that can be achieved through streamlining.

• A joint Alliance/AIA survey of both jurisdictions and the information technology community on their current use or plans to use hardware/software to submit and track building plans online. (Survey to be posted on Internet by April 26 and close May 7, 2004.)

• Proceedings and work products for interoperability that came from NIST-funded Summit on Streamlining the Building Regulatory Process through Interoperability held in New York City in September 2003.

• Plans for holding a second summit on interoperability in Washington, DC, in late July 2004.

• Pending DOE-funded CD-Rom Alliance update report to the nation’s governors, mayors, and county commissioners (to be released in May).

• PowerPoint presentations summarizing Alliance activities and benefits to communities and construction industry of regulatory streamlining (funded by Fannie Mae and NCSBCS).

Among the documented benefits of regulatory streamlining using information technology noted in the report in some jurisdictions is the reduction in median wait time for building permits from 2 to 3 hours to 7 minutes; reduced plan check times from 10 weeks to 10 days; and wait time for field inspections to be scheduled and conducted from 4 to 5 days to less than 24 hours.

Additional information on the Alliance, copies of the above documents, and the report released at the HUD Research Conference on Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing can be obtained by calling Carolyn Fitch (703 481-2038) or by visiting the Alliance portion of the NCSBCS website (www.ncsbcs.org.

NCSBCS provides technical support to the National Governors Association
under an executive branch agreement and provides secretariat services to the
Industrialized Buildings Commission - an interstate compact,
the Association of Major City/County Building Officials, and
the Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age.