With funding and in-kind services from its members and an initial grant from the Construction and Buildings Subcommittee of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Alliance undertook Phase I of its original Action Agenda, establishing work groups and developing initial streamlining materials.

Three work groups were organized and began operation in late 2001/early 2002. These included: A Steering Committee to provide oversight; a Technology Task Force to gather input from the information technology community; and a Planning and Coordinating Task Force comprised of federal, state and local government officials and charged with supporting the adoption and use of Alliance streamlining materials.

Initial work products developed by these groups included:

• A listing of available hardware and software being used by state and local governments in their building regulatory processes located on the Alliance portion of the NCSBCS website.

• A listing on the website of jurisdictions that are using I.T. and ways in which they gained support for funding those services.

• An outline of a plan to develop a secure database of as-built designs, evacuation plans, key contact information for first responders to use as they rolled up to a disaster (manmade or natural) site

• The Business Case for Regulatory Streamlining describing results of successful streamlining initiatives and potential savings to both the construction industry and to state and local governments.

• The holding of annual forums to share information on the Alliance, one in Louisville, Kentucky (2002) and another in Portland, Oregon (2003) on "Building Smarter in the Digital Age." (Summaries of these programs and presentations made at them are found on the Alliance portion of the NCSBCS website at www.ncsbcs.org.)

In addition to the above, in the summer of 2002, the Alliance was approached by the Fannie Mae Foundation and the National Association of Home Builders regarding the need for a separate work group to be formed to accelerate the development of streamlining materials that had a positive impact on the production of more affordable housing in the nation.

From that request, the Alliance established the Affordable Housing Task Force in late 2002. That new work group identified several work projects and helped secure funding for them. Those projects include the development of a cost/ benefit matrix to ascertain the savings being achieved by home builders who produced homes in jurisdictions that had streamlined their building regulatory process using information technology.

Over the past year and a half, with funding from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fannie Mae Foundation, American Institute of Architects, and Department of Energy and extensive in-kind service contributions from its members, the Alliance expanded the range and depth of the materials that enable jurisdictions to make greater use of information technology in their building regulatory processes. These efforts have fallen into the following project categories and comprise the bulk of the remainder of this report: interoperability; affordable housing; surveys and reports to governors, mayors and county administrators.

Work on Interoperability: The seamless exchange of information across regulatory functions and between levels of government.

In its efforts to identify and eliminate regulatory barriers to effective and efficient construction, the Alliance noted that less than 8% of our 44,000 jurisdictions make use of information technology in their building regulatory processes. Among the chief barriers to jurisdictions making greater use of IT in their programs are the costs associated with a lack of interoperability among the data compiled for different regulatory programs. Jurisdictions currently are unable to select the "best of breed" of software and hardware systems or to effectively share any data they gather in one part of their building regulatory system with other agencies within that jurisdiction and with other regulatory functions.

In the summer of 2003, the Alliance, with funding from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), initiated a project to address this barrier.

Among a series of work products developed by the Alliance in 2001-2003 was a set of model procurement requirements for jurisdictions to use in their acquisition of hardware and software for their building regulatory processes. As that document was being developed, it was noted that the software industry was not yet at a stage where one of the requirements within the model could be a set of criteria or standards for interoperability.

In August 2003, NIST funded a work project with the Alliance (carried out by NCSBCS, Institute for Building Technology and Safety and FIATECH) to develop background materials and then assemble representatives from the nation’s information technology, construction and building regulatory communities at a summit meeting. The objective of the Summit was to identify opportunities, challenges and potential solutions to bring about greater use of information technology in the building regulatory process by taking steps to facilitate the IT industry’s production of interoperable hardware and software.

On September 24, 2003, 55 representatives from the above communities assembled at the Downtown Association in New York City and established a series of recommended actions that these groups would work together on to facilitate the development of an integrated interoperable building regulatory system for our nation. (See the Summit final report on website.) Those recommended actions and the current status of their implementation are as follows:

1. The creation of an expanded core work group of jurisdictions that in March 2004 released for the software industry’s review and consideration:

• an analysis that identifies and prioritizes functional interoperability requirements;

• a report on definitions and characteristics and capabilities of currently available commercial software and gaps in current approaches;

• an "Interoperability Background Study" prepared by the Institute for Building Technology and Safety that looks at other interoperability projects in the nation and their relevance to the Alliance’s work; and

• a revised draft interoperability statement for inclusion in the Alliance’s Model Procurement Requirements.

(These materials are available on the Alliance portion of the NCSBCS website as attachments to the Alliance Report "Creating a State-of-the-Art Interoperable Building Regulatory System.")

• the creation in the winter of 2003-2004 of the Information Technology Industry Advisory Subcommittee to the NCSBCS Regulatory Affairs Committee; and

• the formation in March 2004 of two work groups within the ITIA Subcommittee to begin to develop XML schema for online permit processing and addresses.

(Visit the ITIA Subcommittee web pages on the NCSBCS website.)

• provided an overview of how interoperability helps building departments be more effective and efficient – (update on progress being made in Oregon, New York City and Fairfax County, VA).

• released for public comment a draft (Version 1.0) of an xml standard for on-line permit processing, "Building Regulatory Process Interoperability Framework Implementation Specification."

• identified additional technologies and requirements needed to achieve an integrated and interoperable building regulatory process for the nation.

• identified barriers to achieving the above and actions that need to be taken by stakeholders to take do so.

• updated the Alliance’s Next Steps towards the creation of such a system.

• prepared a final report on the Second Summit that was distributed at the 4^th National Forum on Building Smarter in the Digital Age held in Salt Lake City, Utah, September 29, 2004. (See Alliance portion of NCSBCS website for final report.)

Under funding from the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Fannie Mae Foundation and NCSBCS, in early 2004 several Affordable Housing Task Force streamlining initiatives were undertaken by the Alliance. The first of these was an outreach effort by Fannie Mae in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area that brought the Alliance's Secretariat together with HUD's Director of the America's Affordable Housing Initiative, Bryant Applegate, to share successful regulatory streamlining initiatives with building officials from the Twin Cities.

Under funds from HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research, in late February the Alliance undertook three streamlining initiatives. The first involved the full development of a cost/benefit analysis matrix that homebuilders and building officials could use to document the savings that are achievable by building the exact same model of a home in two different locations in a state with a uniform statewide construction code. The matrix compiles the time and labor costs involved in moving that home through the regulatory system of a jurisdiction that has streamlined its building regulatory process using information technology (online permit processing, online plan submittals, field inspections using handheld devices, etc), versus the other jurisdiction that has not streamlined and relies on traditional non-I.T. methodologies.

In early May 2004, the Alliance developed the matrix and has tentatively identified homebuilders and jurisdictions in Virginia, California and Oregon where the actual demonstrations will take place later in the year.

Two other work tasks have been completed under HUD funding. One was a study that concluded it was feasible to include an interoperability statement within the Alliance's Model Procurement Requirements. (See earlier interoperability discussions.) The second was the drafting of award criteria for a series of proposed federally funded matching grants to states and localities to facilitate the streamlining of their regulatory processes using information technology.

With funding from the American Institute of Architects, in early May the Alliance posted on a hosted website a detailed survey for building officials and the information technology industry to complete to acquire base information on the current and planned use of hardware and software to receive and track (and review) building plans electronically. The objective of this effort was to substantially expand the knowledge of what is going on across the country in this area and develop a plan to address and overcome existing barriers to greater use of electronic plans submittal, tracking and review. Results of the survey have been summarized and will be published on the NCSBCS website.

Reports to the Nation’s Governors, Mayors & County Administrators

Finally, under funding from the U. S. Department of Energy, in early June the Alliance issued this third annual CD-ROM report on Alliance activities to the nation's governors, mayors, county officials, and chief information officers.

During the next four years, the Alliance proposes to seek funding to undertake the following projects that carryout the mission of the Alliance:

1. Immediate-Term Actions – January 2005 - June 2005

Action Agenda Phase II continued

• Coordinate Alliance activities with regulatory streamlining needs of state and local governments to meet homeland security requirements being established under the National Incident Management System (NIMS).
• Follow-up project to support state and local government use of Model Procurement Requirements.
• Support IT Industry Advisory Subcommittee further work on XML schema for interoperability standards for hardware and software used in the building regulatory process.
• Update interoperability statement within Model Procurement Requirements to incorporate XML schema developed by IT Industry Advisory Subcommittee.
• Produce "how to streamline" guide for use by state and local governments.
• Conduct survey and write report on savings being achieved by jurisdictions investing in information technology for their building regulatory processes.
• Obtain initial federal funding for matching streamlining implementation grants to state and local governments.
• Coordinate Alliance interoperability work with that of the FIATECH AEX project.

1. Mid-Term Actions – July 2005 - December 2005

Action Agenda Phase II continued

• Facilitate expansion of number of mutual aid agreements across regional lines by sharing Alliance best practices.
• Develop and test prototype of interoperable secure database.

1. Long-Term Actions – January 2006 - December 2008

Action Agenda Phase III

• Complete development of XML schema for hardware and software used in building regulatory process and incorporate into Model Procurement Requirements.
• Gain nationwide acceptance and use of above XML schema and Model Procurement Requirements.
• Obtain subsequent federal funding for matching streamlining implementation grants to state and local governments.
• Provide annual forum for federal, state and local governments and construction and information technology communities to come together to review progress and identify additional common actions that can be taken to facilitate the creation and maintenance of an integrated and interoperable building regulatory process for this nation.
• Refine and expand regional secure interoperable database of as-built designs and other key building structure-related contact information for first responders.
• Support model code efforts to put building codes into XML format to facilitate development of online web-based electronic plans reviews and field inspection system.