Building Code Review Board

Agenda Village of Arlington Heights Building Code Review Board Commissions Room Village Hall November 29, 2018 7:00 PM I. CALL TO ORDER II. ROLL CALL III. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. Approval of Minutes - December 12, 2017 Meeting IV. REPORTS V. OLD BUSINESS A. Proposed Modification to Village Code Chapters 23 and 27 VI. NEW BUSINESS A. Variance from Chapter 23. Section 23-402(f) of the Arlington Heights Municipal Code at The Moorings of Arlington Heights Campus, 811 E. Central Road. B. Variance Request of Chapter 23, Section 903.2.8 and 703.2 of the Arlington Heights Municipal Code at 132 West Northwest Highway. VII. OTHER BUSINESS VIII.ADJOURNMENT Persons with disabilities requiring auxiliary aids or services, such as an American Sign Language interpreter or written materials in accessible formats, should contact David Robb, Disability Services Coordinator, at 33 S. Arlington Heights Road, Arlington Heights, Illinois 60005, (847)368-5793 (Voice), (847)368-5980 (Fax) or drobb@vah.com.  Item: Approval of Minutes - December 12, 2017 Department: Building & Life Safety ATTACHMENTS: Description Type Minutes - December 12, 2017 Minutes  DRAFT BUILDING CODE REVIEW BOARD MINUTES OF A MEETING BEFORE THE VILLAGE OF ARLINGTON HEIGHTS BUILDING CODE REVIEW BOARD December 12, 2017 MEMBERS PRESENT: ADMINISTRATION PRESENT: Mr. Carrato, Chairman Seven Touloumis, Director of Building & Life Safety Mr. Baldassarra Charley Craig, Assistant Building Official Mr. Bondarowicz Don Lay, Fire Safety Supervisor Mr. Smith Andrew Larson, Deputy Fire Chief Jim Tinaglia, Trustee Patty LeVee, Recording Secretary SUBJECT: Discussion on Code update from 2009 to 2018 of the International Code Council. There being a quorum present, the meeting was called to order at 6:30pm. APPROVAL OF MINUTES MR. BALDASSARRA MOTIONED TO APPROVE THE SEPTEMBER 25, 2017 MINUTES, AS CORRECTED, SECONDED BY MR. BONDAROWICZ, THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY. NEW BUSINESS Mr. Touloumis stated the purpose of this meeting is to establish some protocols and procedures, with a good basis to progress and go through the process of updating the Village Code. Mr. Touloumis is recommending going from the 2009 to 2018 version of International Code Council Code (ICC) and 2017 National Electric Code (NEC). Along with the codes, the Chapters of the Village Code that adopt those or are in some way related to the associated Building Codes will also be addressed. Mr. Touloumis would also like to establish a system to update the codes in tune with the three year cycles that the Codes are updated. The advantage to this is that when you get a Significant Changes book, it is referenced from the last code to the current code you are comparing, therefore you have better documentation to try and understand why it changed. When you go three code cycles, trying to figure out the change is a lot more difficult because you have to cycle back to all the other significant changes of previous cycles. The other advantage is the growing industry technologies out in the fields. Mr. Carrato agreed, he does not see any reason why we should not be updating every three years. Mr. Touloumis stated he would like to create a mindset where they try to get this as good as they can and when glitches come up he would like to be able get those back in front of the Village Board as quickly as possible, not waiting for another three year cycle. Mr. Touloumis asked how to avoid technical discussion at the final Village Board approval. Should this be set up to go before the Committee of the Whole (COW) or in the Friday packet prior to presenting to the Village Board? Trustee Tinaglia said the answer would be to make it so that the codes are as clear and as simple and as straight forward and understandable as possible. Make it so you take the opportunity, as the Director, to interpret it until such point comes as you cannot possibly do that and then have the Building Code Review Board (BCRB) help you through it. You are adopting the new code, which should be easy to do. The BCRB would make a recommendation to adopt it, if we think it is good. Once that is done, it is pretty certain the Village Board will not say it is a bad idea. Mr. Baldassarra stated that they already have published a list of Village amendments to the 21 International Building Code (IBC). He discussed taking those amendments and deciding which to let go and which to maintain; and then go over the new items in the 2018 version as being the focus for proceeding. He asked if the BCRB were to prepare a summary of the Village amendments to the IBC and reasons why they want to do that, would they be able to get an early read from the Village Board. Trustee Tinaglia replied, absolutely. Mr. Carrato stated he thought the focus should be on our amendments being as minimal as possible. Most of what comes before the Board is because we have a more restrictive rule. He is agreeing that we should go through the amendments and decide which ones are really needed. Discussion was held on making our amendments higher quality than the Code states. An example was copper pipe versus plastic. The argument is, if it is in the book, it should be allowed. Mr. Carrato summarized the answer to the question regarding the process is to go through each amendment and have staff gives a recommendation on whether it is actually needed or not. If it is a quality issue and staff believes it is necessary, then we keep it. If not necessary, it is gone. Mr. Touloumis asked if the Village Board would want something presented to them prior to the final packet. Trustee Tinaglia thought that when ready with the final draft, give the Board some time, for sure. If you want to set up time to meet at COW and present it all, nothing wrong with that. It was suggested to look at this project similar to how the budget is handled. There would be meetings prior to going to the Board where reasons for the new code is explained, this way the vote at the Board meeting is fast. Mr. Touloumis asked, what if the Board members disagree on code updates, is there a vote? Trustee Tinaglia explained the Village Board tries to be unified on everything. 2 When an item is up for debate, everyone votes their own, but when there is a policy program, they talk until everyone is on the same page. His suggestion would be that this Board (BCRB) and staff be on the same page when it goes to the Village Board. Do not present something to the Board with a 4-3 vote on something. Trustee Tinaglia said that for a task like this, he agrees with Mr. Touloumis on a pre- meeting at COW session to go through these points and give the Fire Department an opportunity to talk about it as well. Mr. Touloumis asked how formal would the BCRB want to see this on the first run. There are some things he would not want to spend time writing in high level detail before it is discussed. Mr. Bondarowicz thought bringing the concepts first makes the most sense, they can talk about it quickly and efficiently. Mr. Touloumis said they will formally review each item that has been written in the existing amendments. The BCRB would not be looking at the electrical code. There may be a different approach with the Electrical Commission. Discussion pursued of the Electrical Commission coming to Building Code Review Board and/or being a part of it. It is thought the Electrical Commission should come through the Building Code Review Board. It was suggested to have a discussion with the Village Manager and the Mayor. Trustee Tinaglia thought it is probably time for the electrical code to be thoroughly reviewed. Mr. Carrato suggested maybe taking the Chair or President for the Electrical Commission and have them on this Commission and decommission it. Trustee Tinaglia liked the idea. Mr. Touloumis added, that would centralize everything. It ties the electrical components in with fire and building components. Mr. Touloumis next discussed the technical versus administrative ordinance items. He will be doing a significant amount of restructuring of how things are laid out. There are a lot of ordinance level items that, in his opinion, should not be written into an ordinance because they fall under more of a policy issue. One example is regarding how many sets of plans should be submitted with a permit. This is more of a department policy than a hard ordinance to have language for. This could change due to new technology; we should not have to change an ordinance to say, for example, do not submit plans. Mr. Touloumis is trying to eliminate things of this nature in the Ordinance. Another example of an administrative change would be how contractors register, things of that nature. Mr. Touloumis asked the Board how much they want to be involved in this aspect. Mr. Carrato answered, not at all. It will come to the Board eventually because you will say you want to remove it, but they do not need the details. Mr. Touloumis mentioned some changes will also be fee analysis. Mr. Carrato said that should not be their business. 3 Discussion continued on practice for the Building Department to be revenue neutral, that the money brought in should cover the Department expenses in some ways. Mr. Touloumis mentioned much of what the Department does is not necessarily covered with a fee. Trustee Tinaglia mentioned when contractors work in a municipality where there is an outside service that is engaged to do the inspections or the reviews, the Village is not paying for that, that fee is past on directly to the Builders or Architects. In his perspective, as a Trustee who deals with budgets and raising fees for ambulances etc., absolutely get yourself covered cost wise to the best of your ability while being reasonable. If there is money on the table and the next town is charging way more, there is no reason for us to be giving this away. Get the fees appropriate. Mr. Bondarowicz added that what they are saying is that if fees have to go up, fees have to go up to cover personnel. Trustee Tinaglia added, just don’t be the highest one. Mr. Touloumis said this is one more reason why putting codes on three year cycle helps, you can also update the fees along with the codes. Next Mr. Touloumis asked how strong on public input do we want to go. Do we want to advertise this strongly? Mr. Baldassarra noted meetings are publicized anyway and suggested we might want to publicize after completing one book at a time but believes at the last cycle there was a handful of people who showed up in total. Mr. Carrato noted that attendance seemed to always be about sprinklers. Mr. Carrato suggested that anything that is potentially going to cost residents and businesses more money is what you want to get out ahead of time before it gets to the Board. For the most part we are probably making life better for most people. Sprinklers were the big item last time. Trustee Tinaglia stated he thought everything discussed is dead on. When it comes to sprinklers, it would make sense to have some type of proposal. Something to the effect of, if you want to do sprinklers, this is what you get out of the deal, if you do not, this is what it costs you. He would be in favor of sprinkler code on the commercial side being just as the book says. On the residential side he knows the reasons it is not there is because the Board does not want to put that on the residents just yet. A brief discussion ensued regarding residential fire sprinklers and proposal ideas. Mr. Touloumis stated his time line to present to the Board would hopefully be by late November. He plans to go to the COW meetings and do presentations to get the Board the information early enough. There should not be a lot of issues once it is presented at the Board meeting. Hoping for an early December approval, he intends to have language with a start date of January 1, 2019. There would be language built in for people who have already started any project noting a grace period of maybe six months. There was discussion of changes in code books, the order of what sections to begin the process with and which ones to do last (fire sprinklers). Furthered by discussion on intention to create one administrative section to cover the building, mechanical, fuel gas, 4 plumbing, energy, existing building, accessibility, swimming pool, elevators, tanks and electric codes. Fire Code may be included but needs further evaluation. Mr. Touloumis discussed his intention to restructure all technical amendments to replace or insert into specific code sections; not have general application language. He intends to spend a good amount of time on the existing building code to clearly cover things like when fire sprinklers are required to be installed (additions, remodels, change of use, etc.). He also intends to add language allowing for some latitude for the Director to make some code variation judgment calls. Lastly, Mr. Touloumis discussed his intent to restructure the fee schedule. WITH NO FURTHER BUSINESS, CHAIRMAN CARRATO CALLED FOR A MOTION TO ADJOURN. MR. BALDASSARRA MOTIONED TO ADJOURN, SECONDED BY MR. BONDAROWICZ, ALL WERE IN FAVOR. The meeting adjourned at 7:55PM. 5  Item: Proposed Modification to Village Code Chapters 23 and 27 Department: Building & Life Safety ATTACHMENTS: Description Type No Attachments Available  Variance Request from Chapter 23, Section 23-402(f) 903.2 of the Item: Arlington Heights Municipal Code Department: Building & Life Safety Request Petitioner, The Moorings of Arlington Heights/Presbyterian Homes, is requesting relief from the Arlington Heights amendment to the IBC 2009, Section 903.2 that requires a sprinkler to be installed for the new Salt Storage Shed located on the Moorings of Arlington Heights Campus. Recommendation ATTACHMENTS: Description Type No Attachments Available  Variance Request from Chaper 23, Section 903.2.8 and 703.2 of the Item: Arlington Heights Municipal Code Department: Building & Life Safety Request Petitioner, Keith Ginnodo of Kingsley & Ginnodo Architects, is requesting (1) to eliminate the requirement for an automatic fire suppression system in lieu of compliance alternative and (2) relief from the requirement of a 1-hour fire- resistant rating either as listed assembly or as tested and instead accept a variation of UL L570. ATTACHMENTS: Description Type No Attachments Available