International Building Code

The first-ever International Building Code, a national, model building code for the United States, is scheduled for publication in 2000. It is being written by the International Code Council (ICC), formed in 1994 by the three existing U.S. model building code organizations: the Building Officials and Code Administrators (BOCA) International, the nation's oldest professional organization for construction code officials, founded in 1915; the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO), founded in 1922; and the Southern Building Code Congress International (SBCCI), founded in 1940.

Building codes serve to protect the public's life, health, and welfare in the built environment. In the United States, this is accomplished by adoption of a code through state statute or local government ordinance. Enforcement is provided by state agencies or local governments, as determined by state law. Model building codes are popular because cities, counties, and states generally lack the resources to write and maintain their own up-to-date, comprehensive regulatory documents.

The genesis of the new code can be traced back to the American Institute of Architects (AIA). In the early 1970s, the AIA implemented a policy calling for both short- and long-term modifications to U.S. building code development processes. Their short-term goal was merely to reorganize the three exist-ing model code documents around a common code format. In this manner, similar requirements would be located in the same chapters in each of the three model codes. Their long-term goal was more ambi-tious and initially thought by many to be wishful thinking on the part of AIA. It called for development and publication of a single set of construction-related codes through the cooperation of the three model code groups.

Showing its resolve to produce nationally applicable model documents, the ICC produced several elements of its family of construction-related codes. The first to be promulgated was the International Mechanical Code in 1995. Rapidly following were the International Plumbing Code, the International Private Sewage Disposal Code, and an International Zoning Code. Finally, in late 1996, ICC began what was believed to be its most difficult task, creating a unified building code, by establishing code devel-opment committees to meld the three distinctly different regional building codes into a single model code.