"Building Smarter in the Digital Age –

Bringing Information Technology

to the Building Regulatory Process"

The May 31–June 1 national forum, "Building Smarter in the Digital Age," brought together 90 government and industry leaders to explore the benefits information technology can bring to the process of providing safe, affordable buildings. The objective of the forum was to develop an action agenda to streamline the nation’s building regulatory process through innovative uses of information technology.

Through panel presentations and work group sessions, the forum’s participants developed for national consideration the following Preliminary Action Agenda. The forum closed with a call to the nation’s construction and information technology communities to join with national associations and agencies from all levels of government and the forum’s sponsors to fulfill the action agenda’s purpose of enabling the nation’s construction industry to "build faster, better, safer at less cost."

A follow-up meeting of the forum’s sponsors, co-sponsors, and other organizations and governmental agencies interested in participating in the fulfillment of the action agenda has been scheduled at the offices of the National Governors Association on Thursday, July 12, 2001. At that meeting participating organizations and agencies will finalize the preliminary agenda, affirm their commitments to this project, and set up a timetable for its implementation.

The following Preliminary Action Agenda was assembled from notes and actions taken at the close of the national forum and is available for public comment on the NCSBCS website: www.ncsbcs.org. The website also contains background information on the national forum, a copy of the forum’s agenda, presentations of speakers, and materials generated by four work groups whose efforts led to the development of the preliminary action agenda.

The forum was sponsored by the National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)/Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH) and 41 national co-sponsors from government and the construction and information technology communities listed at the end of the action agenda.

1. Action Agenda Objective

Better serve the needs of the American public by enabling the nation’s construction industry to build "faster, better, safer and at less cost" by streamlining of the nation’s building regulatory process through the innovative use of information technology.

2. Statement of Needs

Attendees of the May 31-June 1 national forum "Building Smarter in the Digital Age" participated in four work groups and in a combined workshop session that reviewed diverse aspects of the nation’s existing building regulation and construction processes. In those sessions, barriers and potential solutions to streamlining those processes through the application of computer technology were identified. From those workshop sessions forum participants identified the following major themes and cross-cut needs to fulfill the above action agenda objective:

A. The current building regulatory and construction system is:

- Fragmented, lacks coordination, predictability between and among the 44,000 jurisdictions which adopt and/or enforce regulations governing the design, construction, and operation of buildings.

- Individual jurisdictions are seen too often only as regulators and not facilitators of safe construction.

- Jurisdictions have been left on their own to struggle with problems that have

served as barriers to the application of information technology to the building regulatory process. These barriers have included: costs, lack of standards for procurement and operations of software systems, cultural differences, training and limited information on currently available hardware, software and intermediate ware.

B. Given the speed of change in technology in this nation, the growing demands from both the public and private sectors for governments to operate more effectively and efficiently in providing services and the fact that the nation’s construction community is looking for ways to reduce the regulatory time and cost of building safe, durable and affordable housing and other structures, therefore there is the need for:

1. A coordinated national effort involving government, the construction and information technology communities to:

a. Identify best practices and share information regarding available regulatory streamlining practices and information technology hardware, software and intermediate ware products and services. Best practices include effective ways to coordinate and structure construction regulatory systems to assure that they function efficiently and support the action agenda’s objective. (It makes no sense to apply information technology to a chaotic and cost inefficient regulatory system.)

b. Identify and develop for all levels of government to adopt and use: procurement standards for information technology, supporting standards for digital signatures, simple common permits and plans review software systems, systems requirements including interoperative data elements and data models.

c. Identity and seek funding to fulfill the above needs and develop an advocacy program for streamlining the nation’s building regulatory and construction processes to achieve the action agenda’s objective.

A. Immediately establish three national groups to work in coordination with each other to carry out the following actions:

1 - A NATIONAL COORDINATING COMMITTEE FOR BUILDING REGULATORY REFORM IN THE DIGITAL AGE -

This committee would be comprised of those national sponsors and cosponsors for the May 31-June 1 national forum plus other organizations and agencies from the construction, information technology and government communities who have made a formal commitment to carry out the action agenda objective of streamlining the nation’s building regulatory process through the use of information technology.

The committee would:

• Oversee this national initiative;

• Develop a short-term and long-term work plan schedule, and funding proposal for this initiative;

• Plan and conduct a follow-up national forum in five to nine months.

• Support the efforts of the two task groups, a Government Task Force and a Technology Task Force which simultaneously would work in a coordinated effort to implement special short-term action agenda items (see below) leading to the more rapid streamlining of the building regulatory process;

• Develop and implement an advocacy program for adoption and implementation of the work products developed by this initiative.

2 - THE GOVERNMENT TASK FORCE

The Government Task Force is to be comprised of governmental entities and associations from all levels of government: local, state and federal which sponsored and co-sponsored the May 31-June 1 national forum. This Task Force will be open to expand to include other governmental organizations and agencies interested in fulfilling the objectives of the action agenda.

This task force will:

• Work with the private sector to develop a business plan and case study to gain funding and support for both the uniform application and use of information technology in the building regulatory process to make it more effective and efficient and available to citizens and the construction community on a 24/7/365 basis.

• Develop a cost benefit analysis of streamlining the building regulatory process.

• Participate in and support the activities of the Technology Task Group noted below, including giving the I.T. community an understanding of the actual needs of the building regulators and the drafting of model uniform systems requirements for federal, state, and local governments to use when procuring information technology services for use in the oversight and regulation of construction.

3 - THE TECHNOLOGY TASK FORCE

The Technology Task Force will be comprised of existing public and private sector partnerships and consortia already engaged in applying information technology to the building construction and regulatory processes. Initially this will include I.T. Forum sponsors and co-sponsors and participants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH), the International Alliance for Interoperability, FIATECH, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Institute of Building Sciences, and NCSBCS. The Task Force also will include representatives from: Fairfax County, Virginia; City of Los Angeles, California; and officials form the states of California, New Mexico and Virginia which already have major information technology applications projects underway. A special liaison relationship between the Technology Task Force and the National Association of State Chief Information Officers is being developed.

The Technology Task Force will be open to other associations and governments engaged in information technology consortia and private public partnerships to bring I.T. to the building construction and regulatory processes.

The immediate goals of the Technology Task Force are to:

• Assemble and develop a mission statement, white paper on short-term needs, and work with the Government Task Force in meeting with hardware and software vendors to draft systems requirements for hardware, software and intermediate ware to be purchased by all levels of government to operate their construction regulatory systems.

• Research ways to assure the integration of the building regulatory process into the transformations being made by information technology in the construction industry.

B. Immediately share the outcome of the May 31 - June 1 national forum with the forum’s sponsors and cosponsors and the public and private sectors to solicit their input on the objective and action items developed at the forum and solicit their participation in and support of the fulfillment of them. This will be accomplished through the issuance of national news releases and the posting of the Preliminary Action Agenda developed at the forum on the NCSBCS website for public review and comment. Also posted on that website will be the Powerpoint presentations of a number of the forum speakers and the reports from the forum’s four work groups which subsequently generated the Preliminary Action Agenda.

C. Hold follow-up meeting in early July 2001. The National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards and the National Governors Association, with the support of the forums sponsors and co-sponsors, in early July will schedule and hold a follow-up meeting of all of the national forum’s sponsors and cosponsors and other interested organizations and agencies to finalize the Preliminary Action Agenda, provide formal commitments to this initiative, and develop a timetable and preliminary work plan to carry out its stated objectives. (This meeting has been set for Thursday, July 12, 2001, at the National Governors Association offices in the Hall of the States in Washington, D.C. For more information on the date and time of this meeting, please visit the NCSBCS website.)

D. Hold second national forum in 5 to 9 months. A second national forum on "Building Smarter in the Digital Age" will be held within five to nine months of the May 31 - June 1, 2001 forum.

National Conference of States on Building Codes and Standards (NCSBCS)

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH)

Association of Major City Building Officials

Associated General Contractors of America

American Health Care Association

American Institute of Architects

American Planning Association

Building Owners & Managers Association International

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Commonwealth of Virginia

Conference of World Regions

Council for Excellence in Government

Council of State Community Development Agencies

Council of State Governments

Fairfax County, Virginia

Fannie Mae

Federal Emergency Management Agency

General Services Administration

Industrialized Buildings Commission

Institute for Building Technology and Safety

International Academy for Professional Code Administration

International Alliance for Interoperability

International Code Council

Manufactured Housing Institute

Montgomery County, Maryland

National Association of Counties

National Association of Home Builders

National Association of Home Builders Research Center

National Association of State Chief Information Officers

National Conference of State Legislatures

National Evaluation Service

National Fire Protection Association

National Governors’ Association

National Institute of Building Sciences

National Institutes of Health

National Science Foundation

State of Maryland

State of New Jersey

Rand Corporation

United Homeowners Association

U. S. Conference of Mayors

U. S. Department of Agriculture

U. S. Department of Energy

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