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White House Convenes Conference on 06-02-16 | News

White House Convenes Conference on "Resilient Building Codes"
President Obama declared May as National Building Safety Month

Alice Hill, National Security Council's senior director of resiliency and special assistant to President Obama, opened the White House Conference on Resilient Building Codes. Why does the National Security Council cares about building codes? Because they set the baseline for the safe design and construction of our homes, schools, and workplaces, save lives and prevent damages," explained Hill. She cited the example of Hurricane Andrew's Aug. 24, 1992 landfall on Florida. The 150 mph winds left 177,000 Floridians homeless, leaving swaths of homes with only their concrete foundations. Florida subsequently established the Florida Building Codes Commission, and in 2001adopted statewide building codes that included hurricane standards. After Hurricane Charlie came through Florida in 2004, a report found the new building standards had reduced the number of insured losses compared to Andrew by 60 percent. She noted we've always looked to the past to develop building codes, but now must look to the future impacts of climate change, which are already with us, and will only increase. In Jan. 2015, the federal government established a new flood risk standard to improve the resilience of federal buildings and federally funded projects. In Feb. 2016, a federal earthquake risk management standard was established to improve the resilience of buildings during and after earthquakes. Image: White House video conference

White House Convenes Conference on "Resilient Building Codes" President Obama declared May as National Building Safety Month, and on May 10, 2016, the White House hosted a Conference on Resilient Building Codes https://tinyurl.com/zam9uxa to highlight the critical role of building codes, and the need to incorporate resilient, performance-based design for the future impacts of climate change.

The conference highlighted federal and private sector efforts aimed at advancing resilient building codes and standards: The EPA announced the fall release of the Office of Sustainable Communities Smart Growth Code Fixes for Climate Adaptation report. The report will give communities a menu of changes they can make to zoning and building codes and related policies to prepare for and adapt to climate change, while bringing other environmental, economic, social and health benefits.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it will review, through its Climate Council, its building construction requirements, with the goal of aligning program requirements with the most recent model building codes and standards for resilient construction.

For its part, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers launched a website https://tinyurl.com/hvhq3jz to promote more resilient communities through use of the latest standards and criteria, building codes, and recent climate science.

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) released a statement saying it applauds the leadership in convening the conference. ASLA said it is committed to continuing efforts to work with policy makers to "adopt landscape architecture principles and techniques," which, at their core, are about planning and designing spaces that are resilient, safe and manage natural and built environments.

ASLA continues to urge state and local governments and the private sector to adopt the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES), the comprehensive rating system for sustainable planning, design, construction and maintenance of designed landscapes. SITES was recently adopted by the General Services Administration for its capital construction program.

ASLA has also commited to developing a sourcebook with the working title Green, Complete, and Smart: A Sourcebook and Method for High Performance Streets.