GUIDES TO EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT BUILDING REGULATORY PROCESSES
THROUGH STREAMLINING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT)
ABOUT THESE TWO TOOLS
These two companion publications, an eight-page Elected Officials Guide and more detailed, 83-page “Guide to More Effective and Efficient Building Regulatory Process Through Information Technology,” were prepared by the Alliance to provide a brief overview of the need and benefits from streamlining and the steps that can help a jurisdiction enhance public safety, economic competitiveness and disaster resiliency through streamlining and use of IT.
BENEFITS
The Guides provide jurisdictions with streamlining best practices from jurisdictions across the nation and step by step guidance to:
- assess the need for streamlining building codes administration processes and procedures;
- build support within the private sector in your community to initiate and fund such reforms;
- assess the potential use of IT to improve administration and enforcement – providing necessary steps to help ensure successful implementation and effective use of IT.
SAVINGS TO GOVERNMENT
Released in 2006-07, the two Guides enable jurisdictions to take actions that enabled them to increase the efficiency of the enforcement of building codes while at the same time reducing the amount of time it takes to process building permits, plans and conduct inspections enabling them to shift resources to more critical areas of work. Time savings are between 40 and 60 percent.
SAVINGS TO PUBLIC AND TO PRIVATE SECTOR
Implementing actions documented in the Guides enable architects, engineers and the public to reduce the amount of time it takes to move their projects through the building regulatory process by 40 and 60 percent.
BACKGROUND
The Guides evolved out of requests from state and local building officials and elected officials to assemble in one place both best practices and step-by-step actions that jurisdictions can take to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their building codes administration and regulatory processes by streamlining and using IT. The 8-page Elected Officials Guide stresses the benefits of streamlining and provides an abbreviated introduction to the contents of the HUD 83-page Guide.
The 83-page version of the Guide: defines streamlining, how to assess the need, how to identify and assemble key stakeholders to work on streamlining. The Guide also describes funding resources and how to prepare a building regulatory system for change. The inner workings of each type of hardware and software now being applied to the building codes administration and enforcement processes are described as are the actions that jurisdictions should take to develop effective IT procurement documents.
The 83-page version of the Guide includes a chapter on “Lessons from Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Other Disasters” which describes how streamlining and IT can help jurisdictions improve the ability of the jurisdiction to prepare for, respond to and recover from large scale disasters.
EXAMPLES OF APPLICATION AND JURISDICTION CONTACTS
State of Louisiana – The State of Louisiana acted upon the recommendations contained in the Guide by
surveying the use of IT within building departments and developing a plan for the effective application
of IT in the building departments being established to implement the new statewide building code.
Contact: Curt McCarty, Administrator Louisiana State Uniform Construction Code Council;
Phone: 225-922-0817; E-mail: curt.mccarty@dps.state.la.gov
Salem, Oregon – The City of Salem, Oregon followed the recommendations within the Guide to assemble
a stakeholders group to assist the city in the identification of areas in need of streamlining and areas
where IT can be effectively applied. Contact: Tom Phillips; Phone: 503 -588-6256, Ext 7401;
Email: tphillips@cityofsalem.net
SUMMARY
The Guides provide jurisdictions and the construction community with a single resource to help them determine whether or not their community can benefit from streamlining their existing building regulatory processes and applying IT to their programs.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE ALLIANCE AND A COPY OF THE GUIDES: Visit the Alliance’s web-site at: www.natlpartnerstreamline.org and click on Toolkit. Click on “Guides.” Click on “8-Page Elected Officials Guide” or Click on 83-page HUD Guide.