News from American Institute of Building Design, California Society

On October 29, 2008, I attended a regularly scheduled meeting of the Regulatory and Enforcement Committee (REC) of the California Architect's Board (CAB.) Two items on their agenda were of concern to myself and others. One of which was the relationship of the new California Building Code as it relates to Sections 5537 and 5538 (Exemptions) of the Business and Professions Code (Architect's Practice Act.) The other issue was addressing Areas of Practice not regulated, such as Residential Design.

I was mostly concerned with the latter, as whenever a CAB committee wants to address something it usually means that they have something to address. As I was walking to the meeting room, Doug McCauley, Executive Director of the CAB pulled me aside and said that he was going to recommend to the committee to walk away from this and leave it alone. True to his word, that is exactly what he told the committee. The committee was resounding in its response: They Agreed! They have no reason or desire to regulate the practice of Residential Design. They also categorically said they had no interest in changing or exploring or addressing anything to do with Sections 5537 and 5538. I think it is safe to say (at least for this board's makeup) that we have nothing to worry about as far as our exemptions go. The exemptions are here to stay and the committee is quite happy with the status quo.

On the other hand, they were not happy about the California Building Code changing the 2nd means of egress requirement from three and four story residences. They seemed quite adamant that this was a serious breach of the safety and welfare of the public - despite the fact that they had no evidence to support their position. They were so upset they decided to recommend that the CAB write a letter to the state's Housing and Community Development Agency requesting that this issue be reexamined and the code be changed at the next cycle. This won't really have any impact on our practice, other than it will remove our argument for expanding our exemption to include three story residences.

I argued pretty vehemently that two stories was arbitrary and unfairly restricted our ability to practice. They were sympathetic and certainly willing to listen to my arguments, but, without a strong advocate to carry it to the board, it may be impossible to move these people to a new paradigm. They also, on this same theme, discussed the fact that the International Residential Code (IRC,) which will likely become active in the next code cycle, may have even more issues that they will need to address as it effects Section 5537 and 5538. We will need to be ever vigilant, as always. They did not discuss at all the main issue that was in their agenda which was how Conventional Framing effected the exemptions. It sounded like they didn't even want to discuss it.

On another note, Kurt Cooknick, Director of Regulation and Practice for AIA California Council sat next to me and he and I got along very well. He is an unlicensed architect (or building designer if you will) and yet AIA has seen fit to put him in charge of regulating architects. Hmmm. I talked to him about expanding the exemption area and, although he was not overtly supportive, he was also not adamantly against it. The thing we have to realize is that we are way to small to try and make any changes to the regulations without the support of AIA CC and the REC. I hope I am not waking a sleeping giant with this issue, but I took my boldness from the fact that the REC seems strong in its support of the exemptions. So if they are at least willing to talk about it, I can't see the harm. You may choose to have me shot later.

One final issue and that is Doug McCauley said that ASID is not going away. He was adamant that they are going to bring SB 1312 back to the legislature in 2009. He said they are becoming very politically sophisticated and have a large war chest from the national organization. He also said that they have hired a top gun lobbying firm in Sacramento for this next effort. I think it is clear that the CAB (at least in the form of its executive director) is going to be looking to AIBD to support their position. NO more wishy-washy, half measures of neutrality. I believe it is going to be important that our membership really decide where it wants to be on this issue. I would prefer that this conversation and decision making take place before the fact rather than reacting to a lot of pulling back and forth. I recognize that it is hard to do without something concrete to look at, but the real issue here is not the details of the bill but the concept of regulation. ASID WANTS to be regulated. Do we? Do we want it badly enough to go up against the forces that will surely be aligned against the measure?

....and from the Legislative Watch Committee, I can report the following: Of the 12 bills that worked their way through the legislature this last session that were on our watch list for one reason or another, only 3 made it to the the governor's desk, and of those one was vetoed and two were signed into law. (Passed) HB 2180 encouraged the use of solar energy panels and directs jurisdictions to treat solar panels as any other architectural process. (Passed) SB 1473 This bill would revise the definition of "building standard" in
existing law to include sustainable building standards and green building standards, as defined in the bill. I suspect this means that the sustainable chapter currently being written for the California Building Code will now be put into the code. (Vetoed) AB 2939. this bill also dealt with Green Building Standards, but gave local jurisdictions the right to re-write them at will.

Jeff Rice, reporting.

I attended the meeting to represent AIBD and to observe the discussions on the
Regulatory and Enforcement Committee's (REC) Report. (FYI, the REC had their
meeting on Oct. 29, 2008, that was attended by Jeff Rice.) The two items that were
associated with unlicensed building designers were the last two items on the board's
agenda, J.4 & J.5.
Item J.4 was about researching options for addressing areas of practice that do not require an Architect license, such as residential design. The REC's recommendation to the board was to not pursue this objective, based on limited funding, and to instead focus on regulating the architect licensees and educating the consumers. The President of CAB, Jon Alan Baker, voiced his opinion in contrary to the REC's recommendations and proposed to eliminate the exemptions, basing his proposal on consumer protection and on Architects complaints on unlicensed designers. Mostly all the board members
immediately agreed with the President with few discussions. Immediately following, the
President made a motion to study eliminating the exemptions in the Strategic Planning
Session and to look at all aspects of unlicensed designers.

The second item was on identifying the definition of conventional framing in light of the
2007 CA Building Code and possible revisions to the Business and Professions Code
Sections 5537 & 5538 to reflect the changes in the code. Bob Carter, an Architectural
Consultant, reported that he met with the Building Officials the day before and that they
are still looking the language in the code (for three and four stories exiting) and that they are focused on the Fire, Life and Safety aspects. He motioned to approve the REC
recommendations, which were to send a letter to the Dept. of Housing and Community
Development and possibly to the Office of the State Fire Marshall regarding this concern. The CAB board agreed to this.

I spoke with Bob Carter, an Architect consultant to the Board, after the meeting about the first item. He said that this has happened before and that the issue of eliminating the
exemptions hasn't gone anywhere past the Strategic Planning session in the past.

Caroline Loisos, reporting.