Discretion?
We often hear or talk about how complex and demanding our building codes are, and how the 'minimum threshold' or 'barrier to entry' for construction is largely unattainable to the average small business, but is there anything that can be done about it? By and large the answer most architects and our local Agencies Having Jurisdiction, or AHJ, (City and County Building Departments) are going to give you will be no - the standard of construction is set at this minimum to protect the 'Health Safety and Welfare' of potential building inhabitants as well as to minimize the impact on our environment where possible. However, there are a few key moments where our local agencies are given the authority to lessen this barrier to entry for local projects. These few policies mostly benefit existing buildings where an owner wants to renovate, but bringing the building into full compliance with the current code may be infeasible. We can debate 'technical in-feasibility' to the end of time, but certainly financial in-feasibility should have some weight in this debate as well.
Forewarning, this is a long tedious read, but crucial to our local businesses thinking about growing. The most important moments where our agencies have discretion are as follows:
Change of Occupancy - 2016 CBC Section 407 and 3408A.1
"Subject to the approval of the building official, the use or occupancy of existing buildings shall be permitted to be changed and the building is allowed to be occupied for purposes in other groups without conforming to all the requirements of this code for those groups, provided the new or proposed use is less hazardous, based on life and fire risk, than the existing use."
What does this mean?
When your renovation project involves changing from one occupancy classification to another, the building code requires the entire scope of the project to be compliant with the current regulations of the new occupancy classification unless otherwise approved by the Building Official. For example, if you were to renovate a building that was constructed or previously used for one type of use (occupancy) like, an old factory warehouse, and you want to turn it into offices, if the Building Official determines that the 'Business' occupancy classification for offices is less hazardous than the 'Factory' occupancy classification, the building official may not require you to re-evaluate the project to be compliant to the all the new regulations that would apply to a new Business occupancy project.
Plumbing Fixture Count - The new fight - CPC Table A vs. CBC Occupant Counts
This is a touchy subject that is likely only going to get worse on January 1st, 2020 when the new code comes into effect. Simply put, the code is at odds with itself on how we should be calculating potential building occupants by square footage and each AHJ is choosing for themselves how they enforce compliance - sometimes they even flip flop from one project to another. The 2016 California Plumbing Code has its own Occupant Load Factor Table (Table A), which has a limited number of Occupancy Types and an assigned occupant load per area (i.e. in an office building, we count 1 potential toilet/sink user for each 200 sf). In contrast, the California Building Code has its Occupant Load Factor table used for calculating "Means of Egress Sizing" (i.e. hallways and door sizing) in it's Means of Egress Chapter 10. You might be thinking why does that matter, one clearly says for Plumbing Fixtures and the other clearly says for Means of Egress. The problem lies in one little line California added just above Table A in CPC Section 422.1 Fixture Count - 'The total occupant load and occupancy classification shall be determined in accordance with the California Building Code." Yes, that says Building Code, not Plumbing Code. Some AHJs, including paid third party reviewers and big cities like Sacramento are interpreting that to mean that Table A is redundant and that the occupant load used for Life-Safety purposes is the same one that should be used for plumbing fixture counts. While this seems like streamlining the process on the surface, what it does in a small-project based community is kill a whole lot of projects in the 'death by toilets' scenario.
What does this mean?
This wouldn't be a problem if the two tables assigned the same number of occupants per sf, but they don't. In fact, the CBC is TWICE as stringent at the CPC. For example, when calculating the number of occupants in an office you have (1) occupant per 200 sf according to the CPC, but per the CBC you have (1) occupant per 100 sf. That potentially equals twice as many people, which equals significantly more toilets and handwashing fixtures. This becomes a serious problem when you are trying to renovate an existing building and justify that the existing number of toilets works for your new use, which is crucial because adding a new bathroom will cost the building owner upwards of $20,000. See the problem? When the Building Official chooses to enforce the CBC occupant loads, your little remodel project all of a sudden needs twice as many toilets (for the same amount of area), which just blew your budget, and subsequently killed your project, probably leaving you with a signed lease that you can no longer profitably fulfill. This kills small projects - specifically, the small projects that communities rely on to establish their sense of unique identity and placemaking. We have seen the City of Redding attempt to enforce this both ways, very nearly endangering vital projects to this community.
Accessibility Hardship - The 20% Rule & Technical Feasibility
When renovating a building with a budget of less than the currently in-place threshold (2019 is $166,157.00) you are not required to bring your entire building up to full ADA compliance. Instead, our AHJs offer a Construction Hardship allowance where you must spend 20% of your construction budget bringing your building into the maximum compliance feasible with that allotted amount. The question arises when you are looking at your project and your budget and trying the figure out what you can fix with that 20%. The accessibility portion of the CBC (Chapter 11B Section 202.4) clearly lists the order in which accessibility upgrades are to be done with that 20%, starting with the entrance to the building, and ending in a 'where possible... parking'. Shasta County enforces the code as written, however the City of Redding has a mixed record in enforcing this, according to their Hardship Form that must be submitted with the permit application, they include Parking with the highest priority 'Access Feature' and therefore may require owners to upgrade their parking lot at an expense greater than 20% where perhaps replacing a non-compliant drinking fountain with an ADA compliant model or removing hallway barriers would have easily fulfilled the 20% threshold, but with a lower priority feature.
Technical Feasibility
It is at the sole discretion of our local officials to determine what does and does not qualify as 'Technically Feasible' per 2016 CBC 11B-202.3. It is unfortunate that the code only uses the word 'Technically' with no mention of a 'financially feasible' component. To small business owners, the difference between remodeling an entire bathroom to move a toilet 1" to the right vs. changing out an existing drinking fountain for a compliant one can mean the difference between opening their doors vs. abandoning their whole business concept. In support of our growing small business community, we believe that our local officials need to be held to a financial 'reasonableness' standard when it comes to determining what upgrades they require with respect to the scope of a project.
So, next time you or your company are planning a project, reach out to our local agencies and ask how they can use their discretion to help your project come to fruition in our community.
