New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a comprehensive redesign of the decades-old municipal building code this spring – a proposal that aims to align it with national and international standards for the first time, boost construction safety, and simplify processing for contractors. 

The Department of Buildings released the proposed revisions to the existing code after four years of preparation and drafting aided by more than 400 construction industry representatives. The vast revision will largely bring the city’s codes into conformity with standards from the International Code Council, which produces the International Building Code that is used in 48 states.

New York officials are set to adopt locally tailored versions of five out of the eight ICC code standards: fuel and gas, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, and building, says Patricia Lancaster, who is commissioner of the buildings agency. Unlike the current city code, which has changed little since 1968, the IBC is revised every three years through a public input process tapping code officials from around the country. The city will routinely perform case studies to evaluate the functionality of the national codes and tailor any changes to New York’s needs.  

In addition to allowing modern touches such as online filing of permits, the new code is intended to be easier to use and navigate, says Benjamin Jones, assistant commissioner for the Model Code Program, which is the name the buildings department gave to its multiyear code revision process.

The adoption of the new standards is also expected to drastically reduce approval times for new materials and technologies. For example, whereas contractors currently have to obtain a New York-specific Materials and Equipment Acceptance number, or MEA, the new codes will use the ICC’s national equipment standards, opening a wider national market for contractors on turn-key projects, says Kate Lindquist, a buildings department spokeswoman.

The proposed construction codes include other new provisions, such as rules for progressive collapse resistance for buildings taller than 300 ft, says Fatma Amer, deputy commissioner for technical affairs at the buildings department. In addition, all new construction would have to meet requirements on vehicular impact design load, high-pressure gas explosion design load, and continuity and ties.

In terms of fire safety, the new code would require a second water supply system in case the sprinkler system main gets severed, as well as larger in-house water reserves for firefighting. In addition to requiring compliance with Local Law 26, which mandates the use of photoluminescent markings on exits, high-rises will also need to have emergency generators to support alarms, emergency lighting, impact-resistant stairwells, and at least one fire elevator serving the building.

The new code also would introduce the city’s first mandatory peer review process that would ask professionals not directly involved in a project to review skyscraper plans as a way to safeguard against errors.

During the Model Code process, the agency had to use mediation to settle various points of contention among the 400 industry professionals in order to prepare the code’s final draft, Lancaster says.

For instance, in a compromise forced by real estate developers, the agency crafted a compromise to limit the peer review process to specific buildings that meet one of several criteria: a height-to-width aspect ratio of 7 or greater; 600 ft in height; more than 100,000 sq ft in size; irregular superstructures; a design based on non-linear time history analysis; or special seismic dissipation systems. The process would also apply in cases when a building official specifically requests a review.

The City Council was set to hold hearings on the draft, and if approved this summer, it would go into effect on July 1, 2008.