Draft Minutes
Alliance's Affordable Housing Task Force
March 8, 2005
National Association of Home Builders
Washington, DC
Ken Ford welcomed Catherine Godschalk (on phone) and Robert Wible to the Affordable Housing Task Force meeting at NAHB. .
Mr. Wible went over the agenda for the meeting. On a motion by Catherine Godschalk, the minutes of the Task Force’s February 3 meeting were approved as distributed.
Affordable Housing Activity Update
Ken Ford gave an update on the affordable housing activities of the National Association of Home Builders. He described the proposed changes at the International Code Council hearings in Cincinnati and the affordable housing issues that were involved.
Catherine Godschalk presented an update on Fannie Mae’s affordable housing activities. She noted that Suffolk County, New York, was still considering undertaking a project to promote affordable housing. A decision on that will be made in the next month or so.
Robert Wible shared the preliminary findings from the Alliance/NCSBCS survey of state and local government and the savings and costs involved from the use of information technology in one or more codes administration or regulatory processes. He noted that approximately 100 jurisdictions had responded so far and that 36 jurisdictions had provided documentation of the savings they were achieving.
The output from the survey will provide information to state and local governments and elected officials to support taking steps to streamline building regulatory processes through the effective use of information technology. Data from the survey also will be used in the Alliance "How to Streamline Guide" being produced under a cooperative agreement with the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Mr. Wible also noted that seven of the jurisdictions responding to the cost/savings survey had expressed interest in serving on both the Guide’s Review Committee and as reviewers of the draft criteria to select three jurisdictions to field test the Guide. Those jurisdictions included: Ventura County, CA; Fairfax County, VA; Louisville, KY; Cobleskill, NY; Richmond Heights, OH; Sunnyvale, CA and the State of Florida. Fannie Mae, NAHB and NCSBCS have already volunteered to serve on the Guide Review Committee.
Review of Draft Outline of How To Streamline Guide
Attendees then reviewed and discussed the revised draft of the How to Streamline Guide that had emerged from the Task Force’s meeting in early February. Catherine Godschalk offered several suggestions as to items that should be included in the outline. One of those suggestions was including information on how a jurisdiction can go about gathering cost effectiveness information to help promote streamlining. (See Attachment A.)
The second item to be reviewed in this session was a first draft of the Alliance’s proposed criteria for selecting jurisdictions to field test the Guide. Under the NCSBCS/Alliance cooperative agreement with HUD, once the "How to Streamline Guide" is produced at least three different jurisdictions will be selected to review and apply the guide to help them review their existing building regulatory system and make modifications to improve its effectiveness and efficiency.
In the discussion, several recommended changes were made to the draft criteria. (See Attachment B.)
It was agreed that the revised documents would be forwarded onto the other members of the task force who were unable to be at today’s meeting.
The next meeting of the Affordable Housing Task Force will be held at the end of March.
At 11:45 a.m. the meeting was adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
Robert Wible, Secretariat