Draft Minutes
Alliance's Affordable Housing Task Force
January 30, 2004 – 9:30 a.m. to Noon
Fannie Mae, Washington, DC
The fifth meeting of the Affordable Housing Task Force of the Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age was opened by welcoming remarks from Michelle McDonough, Fannie Mae, and from Alliance Secretariat, Robert Wible, NCSBCS.
Attendance was taken and noted as follows:
Michelle McDonough, Fannie Mae
Dana Bres, U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Nicole Testa, FIATECH
Sophie Zager, Fairfax County, VA and Institute for Building Technology and
Safety
John Biechman, National Fire Protection Association
Robert Wible, NCSBCS
Mr. Wible noted that representatives from NAHB and the Rural Housing Service at the U. S. Department of Agriculture had hoped to be able to join this morning's meeting.
Robert Wible, as secretariat to the Alliance, asked if there were any questions or changes to be made to the minutes of the Task Force's last meeting on April 21, 2003, which had been distributed to attendees prior to the meeting. There being none, the minutes from the April meeting was approved as distributed by the secretariat.
UPDATE REPORTS:
THE ALLIANCE – The ongoing work of the Alliance during 2003 and the Alliance's draft work agenda items for 2004 were reviewed and discussed. (See Attachment A.) In his remarks, Mr. Wible noted that on February 12 from 9 to noon at the Hall of the States, the National Governors Association and NCSBCS will host a meeting of all Alliance partners and Affiliates to review and set the Alliance's work agenda for 2004.
In his report Mr. Wible, assisted by Nicole Testa from FIATECH, detailed the Alliance's work on a project funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to work with the information technology community to make hardware and software used by state and local governments in their building regulatory processes to be interoperable. (A summary of that project's New York City Summit on Streamlining the Building Regulatory Process Through Interoperability is available on the Alliance portion of the NCSBCS website -- www.ncsbcs.org.)
FANNIE MAE – Michelle McDonough described work being done by Fannie Mae and its 56 partnerships for affordable housing to identify and remove regulatory barriers to affordable housing. Fannie Mae's overall objective is to help 8 million more Americans purchase homes by 2014. Fannie Mae support for "Fair Growth" in communities was noted.
In her remarks, Ms. McDonough described the January 7-8 streamlining program held in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, at which Robert Wible spoke on the Alliance's streamlining activities and best practices and HUD's new head of its Affordable Communities Initiative, Bryant Applegate, spoke on HUD's efforts to increase the availability of affordable housing by identifying and eliminating regulatory barriers.
It was noted that the Affordable Housing Task Force should look at providing input to the Fannie Mae project wherever possible.
NFPA – John Biechman described NFPA's ongoing
effort to gain support for the adoption and use of NFPA's 5000 Building Code and
described the importance to the construction community of NFPA's consensus-based
code development process. He added that one of the items worthwhile studying as
a contributor to long-term affordability of residential construction was the
inclusion in homes of sprinkler systems which have an impressive track record of
saving lives and reducing property damage caused by fires.
U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – Dana Bres, from the HUD
Office of Policy Development and Research, described several streamlining and
affordable housing and information technology initiatives that the Department
was undertaking in 2004. Among those projects are the study of impact fees and
the status of e-permitting systems and use of wireless handheld PDA's and other
technologies by building departments.
Mr. Bres also briefly described the origins and work projects of the new HUD America's Affordable Communities Initiative.
FIATECH – Nicole Testa described FIATECH's work with the construction community to gain greater use of information technology in their processes of design, construction, operation and maintenance and decommissioning of buildings.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING TASK FORCE PROPOSED WORK AGENDA FOR 2004
Mr. Wible reviewed with the Task Force members the content of their proposed work agenda for 2004. That work agenda includes:
An extensive discussion of the above action agenda items followed and the Task Force approved the adoption of these as their work items for 2004.
TASK FORCE SUPPORT FOR THE COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS PROJECT
Robert Wible reviewed the details and time frames of the four tasks that were to be executed over a 3-4 month period in the cooperative agreement with HUD to develop a cost/benefit analysis of savings to homebuilders from regulatory streamlining. (See Attachment B.)
Under that project, NCSBCS is to identify four Task Force members who are able to review the model cost/benefit matrix, assist in reviewing the matching grant criteria for state and local governments, and assist in ascertaining the feasibility of governments mandating in their procurements that hardware and software be interoperable.
Task Force members Sophie Zager, Michelle McDonough and Dana Bres volunteered to participate in reviewing those work products. Mr. Wible thanked those members for their assistance. He noted that several Task Force members who were unable to attend this meeting also were going to participate on the review committee.
It also was noted that this work group would hold their first session on the morning of March 2, 2004, and that on the afternoon of that day, the Alliance was tentatively scheduling its next meeting of the Affordable Housing Task Force.
EXPANSION OF MEMBERSHIP ON THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING TASK FORCE
Michelle McDonough raised the issue of working to gain additional members on this Task Force. Members discussed this and several outreach suggestions were offered. This included identifying academic institutions that may wish to join.
OTHER
At the close of the session, Mr. Wible asked if there were any other comments or items to come before the Task Force. Ms. Zager described the work being done by the Institute for Building Technology and Safety in the area of affordable housing that might be of interest and use by Alliance members and partners.
ADJOURN
There being no further business at 11:35 the Task Force adjourned. The Task Force's next meeting has been tentatively set for Tuesday, March 2, 2004, at 1:30 p.m. in Washington, D.C. Additional information on the exact location for that meeting will be forwarded by NCSBCS to Task Force members in early February.
Mr. Wible thanked everyone for attending and Ms. McDonough and Fannie Mae for hosting this meeting.