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Herndon, VA -  August 4, 2005                                                                       Carolyn Fitch (703) 437-0100 ext. 238

 State Building Officials Urge Further Research and Adequate Code Enforcement Funding in Support for Coordinated Implementation of World Trade Center Report Recommendations

The chief building regulatory officials of the states, through their association, the National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards, today issued formal comments that call for further technical research to be done on seven of the of 30 recommendations for improvements in the nation’s design, construction and operation of high-rise buildings issued by the National Construction Safety Team in their draft final report on the World Trade Center Collapse.

Issued on June 23, 2005, through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the recommendations in the draft World Trade Center Report covered such areas as increased structural integrity, enhanced fire resistance of structures, improved active fire protection, and improved building evacuation and emergency response.

Founded by the nation’s governors in 1967 to help states and their localities provide effective and efficient building codes administration and enforcement, NCSBCS has been active even prior to September 11, 2001, in assessing and promoting actions that state and local governments can take to enhance public safety in high-rise and other types of construction.

In their response to the WTC report, NCSBCS supported the 30 recommendations offered by the National Construction Safety Team investigating that disaster but recommended that further research be conducted by NIST with other federal agencies and the construction industry to assure that affordable and practical approaches be developed to apply those changes to new and existing construction. In that regard, NCSBCS urged special caution in the area of applying report recommendations to existing high-rise construction "to avoid making the retrofit of high-rise construction so expensive as to reduce the value and usability of the nation’s existing building stock."

NCSBCS also called for elected officials to work with their construction community to assure that building departments which will be charged with enforcing changes in high-rise construction as the result of the implementation of a number of the report’s recommendations, be adequately funded and staffed to carryout those functions.

Among other specific comments in the NCSBCS submission regarding the WTC report recommendations are:

  • Urging that high priority be given to the recommendation calling for national uniformity in wind tunnel testing.
  • Consideration be given to incorporating proposed improved active fire protection systems in model codes.
  • Special attention be paid to the evacuation needs in residential high-rise structures for the elderly and disabled.
  • Improved emergency response information should include as-built designs, evacuation plans and key contact information regarding the architects and engineers involved in the design or retrofit of high-rise structures

In addition, NCSBCS noted that they would study ways in which the association can work with other organizations and elements of the construction industry in developing and carrying out a public education program on building evacuation.

NCSBCS also noted in their submission that under their formal coordination agreements with the National Governors Association and the Council of State Governments, they would be sharing a their comments on the WTC report for those associations to make available to their members.

NCSBCS offered to work with NIST, the construction and codes and standards communities in exploring further steps that should be taken to finalize and implement the report’s recommendations. NCSBCS will participate in the September 13-15 national workshop on the World Trade Center Collapse that is being held at NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

In that regard NCSBCS is scheduling a conference call for the chief state building regulatory officials of the states for September 20, 2005, to discuss possible coordinated follow-up actions on the NIST World Trade Center recommendations.

Click for NCSBCS submission to NIST.  The NIST World Trade Center Report is available on wtc.nist.gov.

NCSBCS was formed by the nation’s governors in 1967 to provide a national forum in which government officials and the private sector can work together to address common concerns in the building regulatory process.

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 Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age.

The vision of the Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age, a private-public partnership, is to use information technology to transform the nation’s building regulatory process to enable the construction industry to build "faster, better, safer and at less cost".