Post-Philly collapse, Harrisburg needs to do its job on building codes

In the wake of the tragic building collapse in Philadelphia, building codes are in the news. This summer, Philadelphia City Council and state legislators are holding hearings to look into the collapse and recommend policy changes in the hopes of preventing more tragedies like the one at 22nd and Market. Most of the discussion thus far has centered around demolition practices and regulation.  

But this is not just a demolition issue, nor is it only a Philly issue. We need to have a broader discussion in Harrisburg about modernizing Pennsylvania’s out-of-date building codes – and the dangerous and dysfunctional way we go about updating them. 

One of the best guarantees we have toward safe and energy-efficient buildings is updated state building codes. Unfortunately, changes to the building code update process, made by the state legislature and Gov. Corbett in 2011 -- at the behest of the home building industry -- are preventing updates to building codes. This means that cost-effective industry best practices are being rejected at the expense of health, safety and energy efficiency. 

Emergency personnel respond to a building collapse in downtown Philadelphia, June 5, 2013. (Dino Hazell/AP Photo)

Pennsylvania previously automatically adopted nearly all changes to its state-wide building code every three years as recommended by the International Code Council (ICC). The model codes adopted by the ICC promote safe, sustainable, and resilient structures across most of the U.S. 

But Act 1 of 2011 changed all that. The new law eliminated automatic updating of the codes and required a two-thirds "super majority" vote of the Uniform Construction Code Review and Advisory Council (RAC). Gov. Corbett hand-picked industry members to serve on the RAC, many of whom hold firm to the belief that new codes are too costly and burdensome and should not be adopted. 

The RAC has now become a wreck as the hundreds of changes to the building codes recommended by the 2012 ICC were all rejected. These rejected changes include safety improvements in addition to updated energy codes. Pennsylvania is now building to the 2009, not the 2012, codes. If this process doesn't change, it is unlikely any new code will be adopted in the future.

Even worse, the industry-dominated RAC is now recommending further changes that would make it even harder to update building codes and could even result in rolling back previous code adoption decisions, enabling codes to revert to much older standards -- anchoring our codes in the past in order to protect industry profits into the future. 

Not adopting revised codes every three years puts Pennsylvanians at risk. Code changes respond to advancements in building products, science, and construction and demolition practices that save energy and improve safety. Codes are also updated to respond to specific disasters such as hurricanes and building collapses that help improve structural requirements going forward. 

We will continue to have accidents and preventable disasters until we have a comprehensive, modern building code that reflects the most up-to-date technology and industry best practices – and that discussion starts in Harrisburg.

Philly is out front on climate planning

This week, Daze caught up with Mayor Nutter's sustainability maven, Katherine Gajewski. 

As Director of Sustainability for Philadelphia, she oversees the mayor's ambitious Greenworks agenda. We sat down with Katherine to talk about the city's new climate preparedness plan and how cities are leading the charge on climate change. 

Andrew: We’re fighting climate change, but it’s already here in many ways. What is the city doing from a planning perspective to deal with more frequent climate events?

Katherine: We’re certainly seeing evidence of the kinds of extreme weather events that we believe we are going to see more of – heavy rains and flooding, an increasing number of high heat days over 90, more severe storms on a far more regular basis. We made a commitment in our 2012 Greenworks report to embark on a comprehensive climate planning process, which we've kicked off. We've established an interdepartmental working group that is coming together on a regular basis to start identifying what the needs and challenges are within departments. For instance, what are the things that we know -- and then trying to identify the gaps where don’t we have certainty? What data sets do we need to to better prepare departments for risks that might face their operations and programs? Over the course of this year, we’re going to be working together to put together a climate preparedness plan with the goal of releasing it towards the end of 2013 or in early 2014.

Andrew: A quarter of our city lives in poverty and we have many vulnerable residents and populations. How do you take that into account when planning?

Katherine: We’re really challenging ourselves and this is where I think some interesting and important work can come out of Philadelphia. People think about climate preparedness and tend to think of the hard infrastructure, but we also need to emphasize just as much the social networks and the people part of this. The Health Department is at the table thinking about some of the public health impacts. Whether it is protecting residents in vulnerable neighborhoods or even thinking down to the level of what the changes might be in vector control services if we experience increased heat and moisture. Are we going to see an increase in mosquitoes and other insects and nuisances that pose a public health challenge? Considering the impacts we believe climate change will have on residents is going to be an essential part of what we do.

Andrew: I know you were recently at the White House talking about climate change. Cities are leading the way on climate planning out of necessity. Is this a coordinated effort to bring climate to the forefront?

Katherine: Cities are very much coordinating on this; there are a number of us who are working on climate plans. There is a real understanding that there are limited resources; we don’t want to recreate wheels. We’re also thinking about where the overlap in needs and asks might be – so that if we all see a regulation at the federal level that’s a barrier to the work we’re trying to do on the ground, it’s much more impactful to have ten cities go talk to HUD, for example, than have a lot of one-offs. We are trying to figure out as cities where it makes sense to speak with a collective voice and how we can work together to advance shared objectives.

Andrew: Public policy-wise, how do we make sure that that this plan, and Greenworks more broadly, has longevity?

Katherine:We need to show the value to residents. Certainly as it relates to climate, we need to do a really good job of talking to residents about why this is something that is impacting their lives and communities and why it is something we need their continued engagement and support on. Having advocacy and neighborhood groups help to be part of that education and outreach process is essential. Creating this value proposition is something that we have been trying to do throughout the Greenworks implementation process. At the end of the day, sustainability planning is just about smart and efficient government. My hope is that we have some good phase one experience in Philadelphia to demonstrate how this can work well; that the Greenworks experience and soon the integrated climate planning experience is going to prove itself as valuable. And that there are going to be folks who want to take it on and continue to move it forward.

Time to get creative on waste in Philly's biz districts

It was big news in Philadelphia last week: shocked onlookers captured camera phone footage of rats running rampant at a popular Midtown Village café and uploaded it onto social networking sites. The restaurant experienced a public relations nightmare as the story quickly went viral. The café closed to fix a broken pipe that led to the infestation, but the damage had been done. Beyond the viral video, the story presents us with a larger issue: how we deal with waste – especially food waste – in large, old, dense urban spaces.

Center City’s booming Midtown Village neighborhood is Exhibit A. Over the past ten years, it has seen a dramatic revival – new restaurants, bars, cafes and art galleries. But with more businesses comes more waste – and more dumpsters, odor, and rats. On some Center City blocks, up to 22 dumpsters line the sidewalk, making for an unpleasant assault on the senses. Not exactly the experience the city envisions for convention-goers.

One Midtown Village stalwart is trying to radically re-think waste collection and storage. McGillin's, the nation’s oldest Irish pub, is looking to create a “zero waste zone.” The now-vacant parking lot adjacent to McGillin’s would become “Drury Street Garden,” a centralized waste storage facility serving up to two dozen Midtown Village businesses. It would have two compactors — one for trash, one for recycling — and a large, sealed Biobin for composting kitchen waste.

Of course, the upfront costs of the “zero waste zone” are significant. While McGillin's expects the savings to pay for themselves over the course of two years, raising the money will still be a challenge. However, the status quo is unacceptable and not without its costs, according to Chris Mullins, owner of the pub, who recently spent $1,200 on an exterminator to treat his entire block.

After last week’s unfortunate PR nightmare involving another restaurateur, we have all the evidence we need that our antiquated waste collection strategy isn't working and is costing us money. Simply put, it's not sustainable. Time to get creative.