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Unofficial
Summary of the
October
10, 2003 meeting of
Safety
Code Task Force
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General
discussion:
- Concensus seemed to be reached that
the Task Force will propose a new State of Alaska Building
and Safety Code Commission to be established by
the Legislature. This commission is proposed to be the agency
that will adopt building codes and deal with appeals in non-deferred
jurisdictions as well as administer the deferrals. The members
would be appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Legislature.
It would consist of an Architect, Engineer, Residential Contractor,
Commercial Contractor, Mechanical Contractor, Electrical Contractor,
Plumbing Contractor, Insurance representative and a Building Official.
Ex-Officio members would be assigned from the Department of Public
Safety, Department of Labor and Work-force Development, Alaska
Housing Finance Corporation and the Department of Transportation
and Public Facilities.
- The Building and Safety Code Commission
would not have direct involvement of code enforcement affairs
in deferred jurisdictions who would retain their own appeals boards
and processes for approving code modifications.
- There was a good deal of discussion
on which agency should have oversight of the mechanical code with
arguments that the State Fire Marshal (SFM) should continue to
do mechanical plan reviews and that the Department of Labor and
Workforce Development (DOL) should start doing mechanical inspections.
Since the SFM does not do inspections and DOL does not do plan
review, it was suggested that the agencies specialize in their
current roles of plan review and inspection but both expand to
cover all the codes. There was concern that the entire task
force proposal might be turned down by the Legislature if there
was a fiscal note attached to cover the extra responsibilities
and the associated costs.
- Co-Chair Ralph Seekins reported
that the list of State of
Alaska and local government employees from all agencies who are
involved in the development and enforcement of building codes
in Alaska was complete and that he would assure that the Legislation
Affairs Offices would have copies.
Next
Meeting: Tenatively scheduled for 9:00am on October 24, 2003 .
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