Building Code Changes Worry Local Pennsylvania Officials
But the effort by the Centre Region Council of Governments headed Tuesday into a "whirlpool of uncertainty," said Jim Steff, COG executive director, because the House passed legislation two weeks ago that would weaken the Pennsylvania Construction Code Act, the Senate approved a different version last week and the House on Thursday will consider modifying the Senate version.
"It's going to be a very vigorous fight in Harrisburg this week," Steff said. "It's uncertain how this is all going to turn out by week's end."
Steff and the elected supervisors and council members of the six COG municipalities worry that changing Act 45, which applies national standards in the Uniform Construction Code to all new building construction in Pennsylvania, may erode support for the "successful" building code enforcement the Centre Region has had in place for the past 35 years.
COG wants lawmakers to wait six months before adopting any amendments to Act 45 to allow municipalities that have not had construction code enforcement to get a taste for it. State Sen. Jake Corman, R-Bellefonte, said he supports that idea. Others, including state Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Spring Township, do not.
"There's been plenty of time to digest this whole thing," Benninghoff said.
The local efforts to head off General Assembly amendments to weaken the act included two letters of concern from COG to the legislative delegation that represents Centre County and an edgy e-mail exchange between Benninghoff and State College Councilman Jeff Kern.
Kern, via e-mail, told Benninghoff that the first House measure, which would have exempted single-family homes and duplexes from the code, was "a cheap election effort." Benninghoff replied that "free people should not be told when, how and who should put in their water heater replacement."
Gov. Tom Ridge signed Act 45 into law in 1999. It was supposed to go into effect July 1. But some provisions went too far, Corman, Benninghoff and state Rep. Lynn Herman, R-Philipsburg, said.
After the House amended the act two weeks ago, fire officials and code-enforcement officers in turn applied pressure to oppose the changes. At a Centre Region COG meeting last week, Alpha Fire Company Chief Shawn Kauffman appealed to COG officials. The result was a letter from COG Chairman Dan Klees to Corman, urging him to oppose any changes to Act 45.
On Monday night, the COG general forum, more than two dozen supervisors and council members from the six COG municipalities, took up the issue again.
Greg Mussi, Centre Region code administration director, told the COG members that exaggerations about the types of construction Act 45 would subject to inspection have created unwarranted sentiment to weaken the law. As an example, he showed a cartoon from a Pittsburgh newspaper depicting "code police" breaking in on a homeowner trying to replace a toilet seat.
COG members voted to hand-deliver another letter to the region's General Assembly delegation. Steff, Mussi, Bellefonte Fire Chief Tim Knisely and COG fire administrator Walt Wise drove to Harrisburg on Tuesday to deliver the letters, meet with Herman and Benninghoff, and came back with "some comfort," Steff said.
Steff said the construction code now enforced in the Centre Region requires submission of a plan before building any addition bigger than 250 square feet. The Uniform Construction Code would allow a 500-foot addition without a plan. The Senate legislation would allow a 1,000-square-foot addition, the size of a four-car garage, without plan approval.
"We had a concern with people building 1,000-square-foot structures without having building plans submitted," Steff said.
Herman and Benninghoff said that whatever changes come about in Act 45, municipalities will still be able to adopt stricter regulations on their own.
"They can still have stronger standards," Herman said.