Herndon, VA – August 20, 2004. The Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age, Fairfax County, Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia, State of Maryland and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) jointly announced today the scheduling of the Second Summit on Streamlining the Building Regulatory Process Through Interoperability to be held at the Fairfax County Government Center on Tuesday, September 14, 2004.

The purpose of the Summit is to bring together building regulatory personnel, the construction industry and representatives from the nation’s information technology communities to further advance the development of a state-of-the-art integrated and interoperable building regulatory system for the nation. The one-day program will build upon the work products developed at the first Summit held in New York City on September 24, 2003.

Among the work products that the Alliance members produced out of the New York City Summit are:

1. Model procurement requirements that contain an interoperability statement that state and local governments are now using to acquire hardware and software for use in their building regulatory programs.
2. Models of data requirements for nine building regulatory processes including online permit processing, plans submission and review, field inspections and certifications.
3. Draft XML schema for on-line plans review processing and a common formatting for building addresses.
4. The conducting of a national survey of online plans submittals, storage and reviews.

Attendees at the September 14, 2004, program will look at ways that interoperability can improve the sharing of critical data amongst other agencies within their jurisdiction, speed the building regulatory process and enhance public safety. In addition, participants will receive a progress report and a proof of concept demonstration from the Information Technology Industry Advisory Subcommittee to the National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards that has been developing XML schema for online permit processing.

The Summit will close with a review of barriers to the development and subsequent adoption and deployment of interoperable hardware and software in the building regulatory process.

The Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age is a public-private sector partnership comprised of 44 national organizations representing state and local governments, the construction industry. Among federal partners in the Alliance are the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is funding the Second Summit, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, U. S. Department of Energy, which funded other Alliance activities during 2003 & 2004.

A complete listing of Alliance partners, copies of Alliance streamlining materials and the agenda for the Second Summit are available on the Alliance’s portion of the NCSBCS website at www.ncsbcs.org.

For more information on the Second Summit or the Alliance, please contact Carolyn Fitch at NCSBCS at cfitch@ncsbcs.org or 800 362-2633 ext. 238.

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.