The State of Minnesota officially kicked of the process to update the state’s building codes on Friday, Jan. 12. The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) hosted a meeting at its office with those appointed to review the changes to the state’s building codes. DLI assembled 10 Technical Advisory Groups (TAGs) comprised of industry experts and code officials and DLI staff who are to recommend changes to the state’s building codes: Code, Building Code Administration, Commercial Building Code, Elevator Code, Energy Code, Existing Building Code, Fire Code Compatibility, Mechanical and Fuel Gas Code, Structural and the Residential Building Code.
Four BATC-Housing First Minnesota members were appointed by DLI to serve as the residential construction representatives on the following TAGs:
Residential Building Code
Brent Nygaard, Lennar
Building Code Administration
Mike Swanson, JMS Custom Homes
Structural Residential Building Code
Mike Barden, Pulte Group
Energy Code
Ross Anderson, The Energy Network
In addition to their TAG appointments, Swanson and Anderson also serve on BATC-Housing First Minnesota’s Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee. Nick Erickson, regulatory affairs manager for Housing First Minnesota, will participate in the TAG meetings and monitor the TAGs to which the housing industry did not get official appointments. TAG meeting dates can be found on the DLI website.
Beginning this week and continuing through the Spring, the TAGs will review the changes in the 2015 and 2018 codes and prepare recommendations of which code provision to adopt.
The Construction Code Advisory Council will then review the TAGs recommendations and submit its findings to the Department of Labor and Industry Commissioner, before the proposal final proposed codes are published.
The final draft codes will be opened for public comment before going into effect, with a draft available in mid-2018. The new codes will take effect March 2020.
To learn more about the process to update Minnesota’s building codes, contact Nick Erickson at nick@HousingFirstMN.org.