Fair Housing Accessibility.

For several years, the National Apartment Association (NAA) and the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC) have urged the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to officially compare the Fair Housing Act design requirements with the major national building codes in an attempt to harmonize the two sets of standards. That effort took on a new sense of urgency when, at NAA/NMHC's request, Congress included language in the committee report accompanying the HUD FY2000 budget instructing HUD to provide a response to Congress by December 31, 1999, concerning the accessibility building code comparison matrix first submitted to HUD in June 1997. As a result, HUD

published its review of both the existing model codes and the soon-to-be-published International Building Code (IBC) on its website at www.hud.gov/fhe/ modelcodes/. The review details which model code provisions provide an equal or greater level of accessibility than the Act requires and provides HUD's suggested changes to the new IBC. NAA/NMHC reviewed the HUD document and participated in a public hearing on the topic on November 10, 1999.

Further, on October 28, NAA/NMHC testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee's Constitution Subcommittee. NAA/ NMHC testimony criticized HUD for its shortsighted strategy of using enforcement quotas to increase the nation's stock of handicapped accessible housing instead of directing its limited resources toward more productive outreach, education, and coordination efforts. NAA/ NMHC's remarks identified some of the numerous abuses that have characterized HUD's accessible design enforcement policy in the 1990s and noted that HUD's enforcement policy is at odds with its own design and construction guidance. Despite the fact that HUD itself has acknowledged its Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines are non-mandatory and constitute but one way a builder/developer can comply with the federal accessibility requirements, experience indicates that HUD and its enforcement agents are requiring developers and architects to justify even small variances from the Guidelines.

NAA/NMHC also noted that HUD's stated goal is not to increase the number of accessible housing units but to double fair housing enforcement activity. NAA/NMHC gave the testimony in support of federal legislation (H.R. 2437). This legislation would expand the current safe harbor from litigation for developers and architects of certain apartment properties that were built to comply with the local building codes in effect at the time.

NAA/NMHC score major victories in the building codes arena

In 1999, the International Code Council (ICC) completed its five-year effort to develop a single set of international codes. This new set of codes will replace the model codes published by the Building Officials and Code Administrators International (BOCA), International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO), and Southern Building Code Congress International (SBCCI). Because of NAA/ NMHC involvement in this process, the new codes include the best of the existing building and fire codes. At the ICC's first joint meeting of BOCA, ICBO and SBCCI in September, challenges were submitted to disapprove all of the sprinkler provisions NAA/ NMHC had submitted over the last four years. Fortunately, we successfully overcame those challenges.

In addition to allowing larger buildings and multiple levels of parking under residential buildings, perhaps the most significant changes in the new codes are the options allowed with the installation of the NFPA 13R sprinkler system. In the past, apartments developed under the SBCCI and ICBO codes had to install the more expensive NFPA 13 sprinkler system (which costs approximately $1,000 per unit more than the 13R system) to take advantage of these cost-saving options. The BOCA code allowed some options with the NFPA 13R, but the new options contained in the International Building Code (IBC) go beyond even those. The IBC now allows developers to increase the maximum allowable height (from three stories to four) and area limits when they install an NFPA 13 or 13R sprinkler.

Under the new codes, installation of the NFPA 13 or 13R system also:

* reduces the required areas of refuge;

* removes the requirement for smoke-proof elevator lobbies in buildings up to four stories in height;

* reduces the exit separation from one-half to one-third of the diagonal;

* reduces the rating requirements for balcony separation from the interior of the building; and

* allows basic fire doors without any requirement for temperature rise.

Additional options include:

* removing the requirement for an 18" extension of fire walls;

* allowing non-fire-rate dampers;

* increasing hydrant spacing from 400 feet to 600 feet;

* modifying access road widths;

* requiring just one access road on projects with 200 or fewer units; and

* reducing the firefighting water flow rates by 75 percent.

Of lesser importance are options to allow a half-hour unit separation; reduce the requirements for interior wall and floor finishes; modify exit passages; and allow charcoal grills on decks or balconies and Christmas trees in areas that contain sprinklers.

The IBC also includes new provisions on open breezeway construction, resolving many of the local issues involved in construction of open exits in multifamily and senior housing. In addition, the IBC will permit all of the typical dual-exit and single-exit configurations now being constructed under the existing codes. In addition, the mechanical and gas codes will allow longer dryer vents designed to meet manufacturer recommendations.

Responding to members' concerns about accessibility, NAA/ NMHC successfully advocated provisions in the IBC designed to comply with the federal accessibility requirements contained in the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fair Housing Accessibility Guidelines. Incorporating these provisions into the codes should resolve many of the industry's accessibility compliance problems by making buildings constructed in accordance with the IBC in compliance with the federal accessibility requirements.

NAA/NMHC also successfully defeated several proposals that would have significantly increased construction costs, such as:

* requiring all dwelling units to be air conditioned and contain carbon monoxide detectors at each smoke detector;

* testing for and controlling lead-based paint;

* reducing maximum height and area limits;

* adding more fire walls; adding four-hour fire walls;

* adding non-combustible fire walls; and

* fire-testing exterior walls from both sides.

The wins achieved by NAA/ NMHC this year in the codes and standards development process will yield big savings for new and existing apartment and seniors housing properties for years to come. The apartment industry will save more than $1.7 billion (or $14,000 per sprinkler system) because of NAA/NMHC's success in defeating an emergency modification proposal to the National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA) 13 and 13R sprinkler standards. The proposal would have required all existing sprinkler systems installed in accordance with the 1999, 1996, 1994 and 1991 editions of the NFPA 13 and 13R sprinkler standards to be redesigned. Compliance with the proposed requirements would have required new lower flow sprinkler heads, larger sprinkler water piping, or the installation of pumps to increase sprinkler water pressures.

Newly constructed properties will save more than $775 per unit, or $232 million annually (assuming 300,000 units of annual new construction), as a result of the provisions advanced by NAA/ NMHC and incorporated into the new IBC, International Fire Code (IFC), and updated ASHRAE 90.1 energy conservation standard (which covers multifamily buildings four or more stories in height). Savings attributed to IBC and IFC total at least $2.28 million in future construction costs, and the modifications advocated by NAA/NMHC to the ASHRAE 90.1 energy standard will yield another $4.5 million in savings.

Information compiled by NAA/NMHC Joint Legislative Staff Senior Vice President Clarine Nardi Riddle; Vice President of Tax Jim Arbury; Vice President of Communications Kim Duty; Vice President of Property Management Jay Harris; Vice President of Environment Eileen Lee; Vice President of Homing and Finance Stephen Lefkovits; and Vice President of Building Codes Ron Nickson.