INTRODUCTION

1. Purpose and Intent of the NARRP
2. The Current Regulatory System as Applied to Rehabilitation
3. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Initiative
4. Related Efforts in New Jersey
5. Relationship to Other Regulatory and Public Policy Goals of Building Rehabilitation
6. Categories of Work Under the NARRP
7. References to the Building Code (and to Other Codes) in the NARRP
8. Use of BOCA National Building Code Terminology in the NARRP
9. Relationship of the NARRP to Fire Codes and Housing/Property Maintenance Codes

1. Purpose and Intent of the NARRP

The reuse of existing buildings and their adaptation to new uses are currently often discouraged by the extreme non-uniformity in regulation of work in existing buildings across the country, and by the often arbitrary, unreasonable or unjustified application of new construction requirements to such buildings. Furthermore, current regulatory approaches that rely extensively on the judgment of local building officials are not only unpredictable, but can ultimately perpetuate unsafe or inadequate conditions even where beneficial opportunities for adaptation and re-use exist. Such concerns highlight the need for an improved approach to regulating rehabilitation. These Nationally Applicable Recommended Rehabilitation Provisions (NARRP) have been developed in response to problems in the current system.

The purpose of the NARRP is to set forth a regulatory framework that will encourage the continued use or re-use of legally existing buildings through a predictable system of requirements that will maintain or improve public health, safety and welfare. The intention is to clarify the requirements that apply when different types of work are performed in existing buildings, and to establish proportionality between the work an owner of an existing building intends to do on a voluntary basis and the additional improvements required to accompany that work as matter of regulatory policy. A regulatory framework that achieves such proportionality will go far towards ensuring that building rehabilitation work will be both affordable and cost effective.

The NARRP implement this proportionality by expanding the term "alteration", currently used by the model codes to cover work in an existing building, into three terms: "renovation", "alteration" and "reconstruction." These correspond to categories of work to which the NARRP assign requirements that increase both in nature and in scope as the voluntary work changes from one category to the next. By this means the NARRP substitute precision for the often variable and arbitrary requirements currently assigned to the term "alteration." This difference is illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 below, and is explained in more detail in the section "Categories of Work Under the NARRP" later in this Introduction.

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2. The Current Regulatory System as Applied to Rehabilitation

Most states and local jurisdictions adopt (with or without amendments) one of the three model building codes: the National Building Code or NBC, published by the Building Officials and Code Administrators International, Inc. (BOCA); the Standard Building Code or SBC, published by the Southern Building Code Congress International (SBCCI); and the Uniform Building Code or UBC, published by the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO). All three address work in existing buildings in their respective Chapters 34. While each code addresses existing buildings using the same basic terminology ("repair", "alteration", "additions" and "change of occupancy") a close examination shows that each code is different. All three require alterations to comply with the building code. However, while the NBC and UBC specify that this be done without requiring the rest of the building to comply, the SBC allows the building official to determine the extent to which the rest of the building shall be made to comply. The differences between the three codes are more extensive in the case of change of occupancy, where the UBC requires compliance with the building code with an exception based on risk analysis, the SBC requires compliance with the intent of the building code, and the NBC requires compliance with the intent of the code and provides a detailed rating system that is intended to establish compliance alternatives that meet the code's intent.

In addition, two of the three model code organizations publish separate model codes that address existing buildings: the SBCCI Standard Existing Buildings Code (SEBC) and the ICBO Uniform Code for Building Conservation (UCBC). These two codes also differ from each other.

When the model building codes are adopted by states and local jurisdictions, Chapter 34 is frequently and extensively amended. This leads to non-uniformity at the local level even within a single model code's region. Massachusetts and New Jersey, for example, are states that use the BOCA National Codes, but both have found that Chapter 34 of the BOCA NBC does not suit their needs, and deleted it in its entirety when adopting the model code. Massachusetts developed its own rehabilitation requirements in 1979, now Article 32 of its building code, with the purpose of encouraging the reuse of existing buildings. New Jersey continued to maintain the "25-50% rule", a cost-based trigger of new construction requirements in existing buildings, even after it was dropped from the NBC.

This situation of diversity among jurisdictions is further compounded because the model codes (to varying degrees) leave much of the regulation of work in existing buildings to the discretion of the local building official. There is evidence that local officials, in exercising this discretion, sometimes fall back on the "25-50% rule", or some other cost-based trigger, in requiring compliance with the code for new construction. And while the SEBC and UCBC were developed to provide uniform guidance to officials in exercising discretion, neither code is widely adopted and there is little information indicating the extent of their use, even as reference materials.

The International Code Council (ICC) has begun the process of developing the International Building Code (IBC), and the resolution of differences among the three model codes is one part of that process. Work in existing buildings will be addressed either as Chapter 34 of the IBC, or as a separate code for existing buildings.

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3. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Initiative

The National Symposium on the Status of Building Regulations for Housing Rehabilitation, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), was convened by the NAHB Research Center on May 16-17, 1995. The meeting included representatives of the three model building codes, code enforcement officials operating under these codes, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS). Representatives from various states and cities presented their respective alternate approaches to the regulation of rehabilitation. The symposium concluded with a list of five recommendations for follow-on activity that could be accomplished under HUD sponsorship, the third of which was:

• Develop a self-contained, national model rehabilitation code to be proposed for adoption by the three model code organizations.

In pursuit of this recommendation, the NARRP are being developed for HUD with the expectation that they will be made available to interested state and local government agencies and offered for consideration by the ICC in resolving the rather extensive differences among the three current versions of Chapter 34.

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4. Related Efforts in New Jersey

The starting point for the development of the NARRP is the Code for Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings under development in New Jersey. Three criteria were defined for New Jersey's new system:

• Timeliness (i.e., few projects handled as special cases),
• Predictability (i.e., due process -- people need to know the law applicable to them and be free from arbitrary treatment), and
• Reasonableness (i.e., provide a reasonable level of safety without imposing excessive additional costs).

New Jersey analyzed several current approaches to the regulation of work in existing buildings in light of these criteria. The analysis focussed on three approaches:

• Article 32 of the Massachusetts building code,
• the Uniform Code for Building Conservation, and
• Chapter 34 of the BOCA National Building Code.

New Jersey's intention is for its Code for Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings to combine the best features of each of these three approaches.

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5. Relationship to Other Regulatory and Public Policy Goals of Building Rehabilitation

There are several areas of Federal policy that impact buildings and the built environment. These include:

• energy conservation,
• accessibility,
• disaster mitigation (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, etc.), and
• environmental health, including indoor air quality.

In each of these areas, one vehicle for implementing the Federal policies is building regulation in general, and building codes in particular. Federal efforts in some of these areas have resulted in specific changes to the model building codes. Such changes however, impact mainly new construction, that is to say, a small part of the national inventory of buildings. Many of the Federal agencies involved have recognized that the impact of these policies can be maximized if changes would be made to existing buildings. As a result, they have undertaken efforts to address this issue by developing guidelines or in some cases proposed regulations for application to existing buildings. Some of the materials developed as a result of these efforts are discussed below.

Energy conservation: The following guidance documents have been published in this area:

• HUD Rehabilitation Energy Guidelines for One-to-Four Family Dwellings (September 1996)
• HUD Rehabilitation Energy Guidelines for Multi-Family Dwellings (September 1996)

Energy upgrades may be required as a condition of project financing, and are often carried out by owners when economically beneficial.

Accessibility: HUD has promulgated regulations applicable to housing at 24 C.F.R. Part 100 in implementation of the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, and the Department of Justice has promulgated regulations and standards applicable to public accommodations and commercial facilities at 28 C.F.R. Part 36 in implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). Since passage of the ADA, all three model codes have made revisions to their accessibility requirements, included those applicable to existing buildings, in an attempt to be consistent with the ADA. The NARRP generally incorporate by reference the accessibility requirements in the applicable model code. HUD has also published the following guidance document relating to housing accessibility:

• Residential Remodeling and Universal Design (HUD-1604-PDR, June 1996)

Disaster mitigation: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has addressed the areas of flood and earthquake mitigation. FEMA's flood mitigation policy is implemented through the vehicle of the National Flood Insurance Program and corresponding building code requirements. In this area it has published the following document:

• Engineering Principles and Practices for Retrofitting Flood Prone Residential Buildings (FEMA 259/January 1995)

FEMA's earthquake mitigation policy, in implementation of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), has relied heavily on building codes in the area of new construction. FEMA's existing buildings program under NEHRP has produced many guidance documents, culminating in the following related documents currently in final stages of development and balloting:

• NEHRP Guidelines for the Seismic Rehabilitation of Buildings (FEMA 273/September 1996)
• NEHRP Commentary on the Guidelines for the Seismic Rehabilitation of Buildings (FEMA 274/September 1996)

It should be noted that FEMA has encouraged the use of financial incentives for earthquake mitigation which, if implemented, would reduce the need to rely on regulation.

Environmental health: Various federal agencies have developed policies addressing environmental hazards in buildings such as asbestos, lead-based paint and radon. The issue of indoor air quality is currently under study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and others. The building codes and other regulations have addressed the first three issues in new construction, but mitigation in existing buildings through regulation is an evolving area. For the most part, lead-based paint in existing buildings is regulated with little consistency by state and local health departments. Guidance documents in this area have been published by HUD, EPA and NIBS, and include the following:

• Guidance Manual, Asbestos Operations & Maintenance Work Practices (NIBS)
• Asbestos Abatement and Management in Buildings, Model Guide Specifications (NIBS)
• Guidelines for the Evaluation and Control of Lead-Based Paint Hazards in Housing (HUD)
• Lead-Based Paint Operations & Maintenance Work Practices Manual for Homes and Buildings (NIBS)
• Guide Specifications for Reducing Lead-Based Paint Hazards (NIBS)

The NARRP have not incorporated the guidance materials in the areas of energy conservation, disaster mitigation and environmental health as mandatory requirements. This is because the NARRP is not intended to assume the regulatory policy-making responsibility of the Federal agencies. In the area of accessibility the NARRP has referenced the building code, in which arena the regulatory issue of ADA's application to existing buildings is being addressed. Building owners are encouraged to become familiar with the guidance materials and consider making appropriate use of them as they plan and execute rehabilitation projects. The NARRP view such work as voluntary activity of a type that should trigger little or no additional work.

The relationship of the NARRP to other areas regulated by local codes such as fire codes, housing codes and property maintenance codes, is addressed later in this Introduction.

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6. Categories of Work Under the NARRP

As previously noted, the model codes currently address work in existing buildings under four categories:

• repair
• alteration
• change of occupancy
• addition

The NARRP expands the model code term "alteration" into three new terms that are defined:

• renovation
• alteration
• reconstruction

Thus the NARRP establishes six categories of work in existing buildings:

• repair
• renovation
• alteration
• reconstruction
• change of occupancy
• addition

Repair (Chapter 3) and renovation (Chapter 4) involve no reconfiguration of any space. The difference between the two is one of quantity (i.e., an extensive repair becomes a renovation) and the demarking line between them is left to the interpretation of users of the NARRP and ultimately the building official. Repairs are not likely to require a building permit. Under the NARRP, repairs may be done with like materials (with a few specific exceptions), even if those materials are no longer permitted by the building code, while renovations require the use of materials and methods specified in the building code. In neither case do the NARRP require work above and beyond that intended by the owner, even when the renovation is to the entire building. There are two exceptions in the case of renovations:

• some accessibility improvements (in accordance with the building code), and
• limited seismic improvements in unreinforced masonry buildings in higher seismic zones.

Voluntary structural strengthening of a building, thermal improvement of the building envelope, asbestos and lead-based paint abatement, and similar work are considered renovation as long as they involve no reconfiguration of spaces, and as such would entail no additional work beyond the two exceptions noted above.

Alteration (Chapter 5) is work that involves the reconfiguration of spaces other than exits and shared means of egress. Alterations are treated like renovations, except that alteration of an entire occupancy or over 50 percent of the building area moves it into the next category of reconstruction.

Reconstruction (Chapter 6) is work that involves the reconfiguration of spaces that includes exits and/or shared means of egress, or extensive alteration, as noted above. Reconstruction work must comply with the materials and methods specified in the building code (like renovation and alteration), and in addition it triggers a specified list of life safety (and some other) improvements limited, for the most part, to the work area intended by the building owner. The life safety improvements themselves are mostly less than code requirements for new construction. Some of the life safety improvements are extended to an entire floor when the work area intended by the building owner exceeds 50 percent of the area of the floor, and they extend beyond that when the intended work involves over 50 percent of the floors of a building.

The matrix in Table 1 below displays the main features of the NARRP requirements related to repairs, renovations, alterations and reconstruction as they apply to principal elements of a building. The columns labeled "Planned Work" summarize requirements for different types of work on various parts of the building as planned or intended by the building owner, while the columns labeled "Triggered Work" indicate additional work that the NARRP requires to be performed in addition to the planned work.

The NARRP approach to change of occupancy (Chapter 7) adopts the concept of use group hazard indices from the UCBC. A change of occupancy in a building, or portion thereof, to an equal or lower hazard rating is generally treated like a reconstruction throughout the portion or building. A change of occupancy to a higher hazard rating also triggers compliance with related building code requirements, with some exceptions.

Additions (Chapter 8) are treated by the NARRP much as they are in the model building codes. The addition must comply with building code requirements, but not the existing building.

Historic buildings (Chapter 9) undergoing repairs, renovations, alterations, reconstruction or change of occupancy are permitted specific additional exceptions to the requirements of the NARRP.

Note: "n.a." indicates not applicable.

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7. References to the Building Code (and to Other Codes) in the NARRP

The NARRP reflect the principle that an existing building in which work is to be undertaken need not be brought up to full compliance with the code requirements for new construction. Nevertheless, the NARRP contain a variety of references to particular requirements of the building code (and to plumbing, mechanical, electrical and/or fire codes). The reference is frequently to a particular chapter of the Building Code, based on the uniform format used by the three model building codes. These types of specific references and their linking to specific parts of the model codes are included for clarity. Where compliance with a particular model code provision is required, and where there are differences among the model codes, it is intended that users of the NARRP will refer to their own respective model code.

For jurisdictions where the building code is not based on a model code or is based on an earlier edition of a model code (before the adoption of the uniform format), the NARRP will have to be modified to properly reference the particular requirements in the applicable building code. Such modifications should be relatively straightforward, since the references are to specific requirements such as egress lighting or handrails.

Finally, there may be jurisdictions without a building code. In these cases, the references to the building code will be meaningless. A code based on the NARRP cannot realistically be utilized except in conjunction with a comprehensive building code.

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8. Use of BOCA National Building Code Terminology in the NARRP

Chapter 2 of the NARRP contains definitions of terms used. Some of the definitions include terms used in the model building codes. One area where such terms differ among the three model codes is the definitions of Use Groups. In this case, the NARRP has arbitrarily selected the terminology of the BOCA National Building Code, rather than vastly expanding the verbiage in the definitions. Users of the other two model codes will have to convert some of these terms to their own terminology. When the International Code Council completes development of the International Building Code, it is expected that the NARRP will adopt its terminology.

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9. Relationship of the NARRP to Fire Codes and Housing/Property Maintenance Codes

Some jurisdictions have adopted fire codes and/or housing/property maintenance codes. These codes establish minimum requirements for health and safety that all existing buildings are expected to meet regardless of whether they are undergoing work of any type. The sources of some of the NARRP requirements applicable to reconstruction are codes such as these. However, the NARRP applies them initially to the work area intended by the building owner, and not to the entire building. Thus, in a jurisdiction that has adopted a fire code and/or a housing/property maintenance code, compliance with the NARRP may not assure full compliance with the other codes. The coordination of enforcement of such codes with codes based on the NARRP, and possible revisions to the former, the latter or both, should be subject to local legal review.

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