When it comes to building codes, N.M. might just have to lead
The National Association of Home Builders fall leadership meetings are underway via Zoom. As a builder member and former executive officer of the local association, I participate on many code-related committees. As reported in an earlier column, the 2020 buzzword among voting members is resiliency.
Because the national leadership is dominated by voting members from the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf states, it’s not surprising most of the conversation is about hurricanes, floods and tornadoes.
To those members, the issues faced by the West — drought and wildfires — are things to read about and watch on TV and not something to experience. That is why I sit on so many committees.
The homebuilding industry’s instinct is to resist new codes. Its fallback position, if the fight is being lost, is to demand codes that are reasonable and affordable. That means the industry has to participate in the process, something at which it excels. There’s a legitimate research arm, the Home Innovation Research Laboratory, that does industry-leading work recognized and respected by national policymakers.
Wildland-urban interface building codes for structures in dangerous fire zones are just now starting to be discussed. Developing them will present a paradigm-shifting challenge to code officials.
Codes are enforced by authorities having jurisdiction, such as a city, county, state or all of the above. There are no national building codes enforced by the federal government. Future wildland building codes for fire rarely can be draped over an entire jurisdiction because the risk shifts from neighborhood to neighborhood.
Wildland fire experts know where risk is. They have very detailed color-coded geographic information system maps going from green to red with shades in between. The maps look like amoebas because the lines follow altitude, topography and tree density, not streets or lines of jurisdiction between city and county.
Developing wildland building codes should follow color lines so high-risk areas do the most and green areas nothing. That’s the jurisdictional challenge for a city like Santa Fe, which goes from green to red and bumps up against the reddest area, just past the city-county line, in our mountains.
It is likely the insurance industry will be the driver for such codes, as actuaries would feel better knowing certain techniques were mandated instead of hoping “market demand” moves the needle. The alternative is no insurance, which means no house with a mortgage gets built.
California most certainly will lead the way on these codes, which means they are likely to be disregarded and feared by many of those on the national committees on which I sit, as are most ideas that come out of California. California builders and their local associations largely have given up trying to get the national association’s attention when it comes to critical Western issues.
It’s also likely California will recognize persistent drought from climate change is shifting zones so green becomes yellow and yellow becomes orange and orange becomes flaming red.
New Mexico knows how to get this done. The jurisdiction of Los Alamos burned in the Cerro Grande Fire 20 years ago and came back with specific codes for specific areas.
A few years ago, the city of Santa Fe’s wildland-urban interface specialist, Porfirio Chavarria, convened county, state and national forest professionals at the Santa Fe Area Home Builders office to explore new zone-specific building codes.
After a couple of years of meeting, the efforts fizzled. They should be brought back. Santa Fe has led the national association on codes for energy and water, and now it should lead on our resiliency needs.
Santa Fe County Fire Chief Erik Litzenberg, I’m looking at you.
Kim Shanahan is a longtime Santa Fe builder and former executive o∞cer of the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association. Contact him at shanafe@aol.com.