The Federal Alliance for Safe Homes Seeks Veto of FHBA Priority

The Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH) recently sent a letter to Governor Rick Scott asking that he veto HB 1021, FHBA’s priority bill which brings some sanity to Florida’s Building Code development process. We can no longer sit back and let out of state interests continue to dictate how Florida develops its code. As a member of the home building community, click here and send a message encouraging Gov. Scott to sign HB 1021 into law.

FLASH has been an opponent to bringing forth a reasonable building code process and has yet to even acknowledge the bill contains provisions which would not allow the building commission to weaken water intrusion or wind velocity standards or that the bill requires the code to comply with FEMA, HUD and NFIP standards or that the current process is flawed, leading to increase consumer costs for unnecessary products mandated by the ICC. Click here to read a copy of FLAHS’s letter.

Right now, we need your help to communicate with Governor Scott the importance of signing into law CS/CS/HB 1021, the Building Code Process/Construction Workforce Bill. Click here to send Governor Scott a message asking him to support FHBA’s priority legislation.

Amongst the many good public policy provisions of CS/CS/HB 1021 by Rep. Avila and Sen. Perry, four key areas will insure that construction remains an economic driver in Florida:

  1. The bill continues the Florida Construction Industry Workforce Taskforce, the first of its kind in Florida to bring together all of the construction trades.  This stakeholders group works with the industry to assess current workforce needs and project future demand. Simultaneously, this group works with workforce agencies and education institutions to properly train individuals for careers in the construction industry. The construction industry is experiencing a workforce shortage of epic proportions and folks need jobs.

2. It creates additional pathways for individuals to qualify as building code inspectors or plans examiners, a workforce shortage costing construction delays and cost overruns. From Hurricane Andrew, we learned that strong building codes only work if they are enforced. We must ensure that enough building inspectors and examiners are available to protect Florida consumers.

3. The bill requires the Florida Building Commission to adopt codes that must maintain eligibility for federal funding and discounts from the National Flood Insurance Program, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development—provisions not guaranteed in current State law with respect to code adoption.

4. The bill brings sanity back to the building code development process. In lieu of scrapping Florida’s code every three years and building it back using the International Code Council (ICC) as a base, the bill empowers the Florida Building Commission (FBC) to keep Florida’s strong code intact and then incorporate the most recently appropriate ICC recommendations. The FBC spends an inordinate amount of time and resources during this triennial cycle, rehabilitating the inadequacies of the ICC. As a result, the FBC is often unable to fully vet the necessity of all ICC related cost-driving changes, which are much more product-driven versus improving structural integrity.

Click here to ask Gov. Scott to sign this important bill!

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