May 13, 2021 Health & Building Standards Commission on 2021-05-13 12:00 PM

Okay, we're going to call the meeting to order. We've already had the attendance called. We have a quorum of four. We also have the flag, the Pledge of Allegiance and the Texas flag. So we're on to item number two to consider approval of the May 6, 2021 meeting minutes. Do I have anybody who make a motion to approve those meetings minutes as stated? Move to approve those meeting minutes. And who was that that stated that? Mike? Mike Swigert. Do I have a second? I second it, Ms. Tori Mitchell. Tori make it noted that we have passed the meeting minutes as stated for May 6, 2021. Do you need a vote? Oh, that might help too. All those approved say aye. Aye, all those opposed say nay. Let us show that it passed. Thank you very much, David. I knew we had you here for a good reason. That's about the only one. Item number B, which is item number HBS 21-012 to receive a report to hold a discussion and to give staff direction related to the processes and updates of the current code and the update of the international code, mechanical code, plumbing, fuel, gas code, building code, power code, potential swimming pool, spa, energy code, national electric code. Primary focus will be to on the national electric code and the international mechanical and plumbing, fuel, gas codes in this reference of the codes applicable. Okay. Who's doing this? Scott? This is going to be Emily. We're going to let Emily provide you with an example of how it is that you log on just for clarity. You should have all received a document. She's going to kind of have not, so she's going to walk you through the process and how to do this and then she'll segue into walking through documents that will be forwarded to you after the meeting, which is really just giving you an understanding of how we're going through the codes. So with that, I'll introduce Emily Lewis-Ellen, our deputy building official. Hello. So I do have that document available. I just wanted Scott's eyes on it first before I sent it out. So as we go through this, it'll definitely either confirm that the instructions are correct or they aren't. I am going to share my screen. What we're going to do is we're going to go to the ICC website and we are going to kind of look at codes and see where you can find them. Can everybody see this? It says now available membership digital badges, et cetera. So Emily, if I might just for those that are on the call and those that may be viewing, these instructions are for the commission members. This is going to give them their specific access into the system. On our website, we will have the instructions for the public. And it's a very simple process. Anyone that would like to go to the codes, they can do one of two things. They can go to ICC safe.org or they can simply go into a Google search bar and search international. I'll just use international building code 2021 online access and you can go in and get access to the building code. And that has all of the 2021 codes available for anybody that would like to review those codes. The access that the commission members have is a paid access which just has a little bit more ease and use. So that won't be made available to the public as a whole. But the codes are available to the public. So we won't be sharing the password information at this point in time. >> Yeah, this one goes into a little bit more. It just has a little bit more to it. >> Yeah, you have the passwords, isn't it? >> Yes, Tori? >> Yes, I was getting ready to ask. I got my account pulled up and it says the dashboard's credentials training membership. Is that what you need me to be or I need to have something else in front of me? >> I was going to walk everybody through that. We haven't gotten to the dashboard yet. >> Tori, can you see the screen? >> No, I don't have access, but if you -- I'm elementary, so if you just tell me what I need to do, I can follow instructions. >> You're in the right place. >> So, Scott, can you see my screen? >> Yes, you're good. >> Okay. So what I did is I just put ICCsafe.org. This is their main page. It will have a My ICC at the top, and hopefully everybody's signed up for My ICC with an account. I think it's a free account. Anyone can sign up for. Does that sound correct, Scott? You're on mute. That's fine. So when you click onto My ICC, it will have your login here. And once you've signed in, there's going to be the dashboard. So I think that's where Tori's at. I think she's at the dashboard right now. And you'll see on this left side of the dashboard, it's green. It's got a digital codes library. And we're going to click on that digital codes library. And again, for everybody that's not able to get on and interactive with me, I am going to send out a very detailed page-by-page sheet and with instructions. After that, you'll see this thing -- let's see. This up here, it'll have like a little icon. It's green with a couple of people in it right next to your name at the very top right. Tori, do you see where that is? And if you hover over it, it says concurrent access. So what will happen for those that are watching is they may have to move your bar with the faces over to the other side of the screen or minimize and hide the thumbnail video so you can see the entirety of Emily's screen. Yeah, you're probably right. And then you'll see her cursor in the upper right-hand corner next to the Emily with the small little icon with multiple -- it's really -- instead of being one person, it's multiple. Right. Tori, do you see that at the top right? It's a green circle with two little people in it. Emily, what is our password that we're supposed to be using? You're not clear yet. You're still sending that. Well, I think I sent it last time. You did. Yeah, so it's in there, but we just haven't gotten to that here. Yeah, and we can't put that out publicly because it's a reserved number of copies. I only handed it out to 20 people. Yeah, it's only $1,000 a person, Greg. We'll send you a bill. Citi's got plenty of money. Does everybody see kind of where we're at so I can move to the next screen? I do. Okay, so once you click that, it'll pull up an access code here, and I'm going to just move this -- I don't know. Maybe I can move this over and put that access code in. Can you still see what I'm doing? Scott, did I move off the screen? No, you're there. You're on concurrent access. You got to click the submit button. Right. I was going to try and not do that. So put the access code in right there. Can you still see? Yeah, you can see. Can you give it again? My Internet went out, but it's back on. Can I e-mail that? I think Scott's wanting to keep it. Yeah, e-mail it out. Isn't this what you e-mailed to us a couple weeks ago? Yes. Okay. I'll just put it in the subject line. Will that work, Tori? Yeah, that'll be fine. Okay. I'm sorry. Oh, you're fine. Fine. We're all in the same place, Tori. I assure you. When we get into these, we'll be able to click on each of these code books and enter into them. Is that how it's probably going to work? Yes. You'll be able to get in. You'll be able to make notes. You'll be able to e-mail from the sections to people. I mean, there's so many different things you can do. It's a little bit overwhelming at first, but you get in there a couple of times and you're like, "Okay, that's how I can do that. That's how I can do that." And it becomes a little bit easier to manage. Just for the commission members, we're happy to meet any one of you or any three of you at one time and walk you through this so we can do it live if there's a preference to do that. So no problem at all. This is probably the most challenging part of what we have to do is to try to do this virtually. But once you have this tool available to you, it'll make life much simpler. It's a lot better than carrying 10 books around, which the 10 books are probably close to about 36 inches tall, certainly 30 inches tall. Yeah, it's quite a fun process. Well, and again, I can't emphasize enough is really that the commissioners have done a lot of the hard work already. So this will be a much simpler... It's really an update to the update to the update. So it should be fairly straightforward. God, as I recall, it used to give you what the code is and what the code is being modified to if there's any changes. It's probably what you guys are doing as far as a change. But if the code has changed, let's just say it, you now have to put it six foot deep. Those kind of modifications are already noted in the revised... And we can definitely show you what that looks like. There's a lot of different colored writing in these premium codes that actually should... It's actually on the sentences or the group of words that it has changed from the previous code cycles. Do you understand that, David? They'll have colors. Yes, I was hoping that it was like last time with the red and the black and the underline. I'm gonna get that. It'll be different colors for this, and then I'll have the red colors for you for the amendment reasons for the amendment. Yeah, that just makes it easier. It does. It does. Tori, are you where we are on this one? Were you able to get in? Okay, and what should I be seeing now? I'm sorry. It should say my library and view by category, location, search for title. And that was going through my membership? Yeah, concurrent members, and then putting in the access code. And here's one. Show this, but once you start getting in and opening these books, then it'll automatically pop up the last book that you looked at on this. So that's pretty nice too. Okay. Let me try to log in. Hold on. Greg, can you refresh my memory from last meeting? Did we decide to do the building code first and the plumbing and all that later? Maybe. Oh, okay. Emily's just going to run into some of the simpler ones first. Oh, good. Okay. Okay. And I will tell you, and again, if there is value, as early as next week, let me look at my calendar. If on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, if you guys would like to meet on site, we can go through this exercise then. Can't have more than four, but certainly we could walk through just how to get in, how to use it once you're in. And that may be much more helpful. So, Mr. Chair, if I might, can I just do an informal poll here? Sure. Scott, can I interrupt for a second? Yes. If you have four, that's a quorum, correct? Yes, I said less than four. Oh, I thought you said we can't have more than four. No. My hearing's gone from all the... Yeah, no. I would like to see if there are three individuals that might like to meet Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday morning. Are there three individuals? Yes. Is there anyone that would like to? Let's start with one. Are you talking about Monday, Tuesday? Yeah, Tory one. Okay. So, Tory, I've got Tory down as member number one that would like to meet. Do I have a member number two? Yes, David. David, do I have a member number three? Is this something that would be easier for the staff to do for us to go and do it? Because I can pick up on this from Zoom. Are you talking about does someone need it for themselves or do you need people to come in? Because if you need people, I can come in. If you feel comfortable and you're able to do it, you're fine. We're going to set up a couple of tutorials and give an opportunity for everyone of the commission members just for staff to kind of just walk through the exercise, show them how that works and then give them an opportunity to do it on their own and maybe give some tips and tricks on some of the cool little tools and widgets. Mike, if you're comfortable with doing your own, you know, you can't do any damage. Go in there and tear it up. So, okay. Scott, I'll be happy to come. If that's fine, I can learn something and maybe you can show me your office. Okay. So, um, how about, how about, um, Monday at 9 a.m.? Is anybody available Monday at 9 a.m.? I'm available. Yes, I should be. Okay. I want to let me read. I said that too quick. Let me look at my calendar. I believe so that'll work for me. Okay. Emily, are you available Monday as well? Yes, I am. Okay. So, Monday, 9 a.m. Emily or Selena can send out an invite to those three individuals with directions on how to park and where we're at. We'll plan on, we'll plan on Monday at 9 a.m. and then we'll, we'll make contact with the other commission members and we'll set up another time for anybody that liked to get in. Mike, if you'd like to, that email will go out to the entirety of the group. So the three of you will be down for Monday at 9 a.m. If any one of you can't make it, that's okay. Um, the show will go on without you and we'll provide another opportunity to do this. I'll be there. I'll see you Monday at 9. Okay. So with, with that being said, maybe that will help you through this, Emily. Um, and you can kind of just, you can drill into one of the, one of the books just to show an example. Sure. Yeah. I'll just go through this pretty, pretty quickly. Um, Mike, so you could probably pick up on this. Um, for the search title, I, I, I highly recommend put 2021 anytime you put something in. Um, if you don't, it's going to be, um, a huge list of just everything. So we'll go ahead and go to mechanical. I just put 2021 international mechanical in pops right up, go over and sit and hover over it. It says view premium. That's what you're going to click on to view this code. Now it's not going to work. It's thinking about it. Um, so basically what this is going to say, it's going to tell you what kind of versions they've got going on with those. Um, currently being viewed as the second printing, they may have had some typos or some, some, um, small errors that they've fixed since the first printing, which I don't even know that it was out quite that early, but it may have been, um, it'll tell you, um, important changes in the 2021. Um, it's really the changes that, um, make the most difference in building codes. And then this down here is just a link that'll help you learn how to do the, um, the notes and, and I'll kind of go through that as well, but this is, you know, just a nice little helpful link that'll get you there. Um, to the left is where the code sections are. Um, it, it'll, you know, it'll be, it'll read just like the book does the copyright and the preface. Um, and then it also kind of go into the arrangement and format. Um, this just gives you the generalization of what each chapter is for. Um, it doesn't go into codes, but it does kind of give you an overview of what, um, what the whole code book is for. Um, it'll talk about the scope and administration. It'll go into definitions. It'll just, it just kind of gives you that overview so you can understand why the book is laid out, how it is. So looking at the first chapter, um, it'll, it'll start right there with, you know, section one. Um, if you scroll all the way down, it'll stop it at, um, and it won't start at section two. You'll have to close this back up and open section two. Um, I think that's just really, it's easier to maneuver if you don't have so many sections to scroll through. Yes. And then just to, just to note, if you look at that section right there, it says section 101, and then it goes into the first section of the code. It has an A in front of it. And there was a key in the front of the, in the front of the public and that will tell you that A is administration. You might see an F in some sections. That's the fire code. You might see a B that's the building code. You might see a P and that's the plumbing code. So those, those letters indicate that that section is applicable to, this is the administrative sections. And then the numbering will tell you that you are in chapter one, 101.1. So if we were in chapter two, it would be one, or it'd be check 201.1. So she's pulling that up. So there you have the scope of chapter two and so on and so forth. So if ever you're in the middle of some sort of text and you're looking at it, just know that those numbers correspond to the chapter in which you are in. You'll notice that chapter two, because this is not administrative provisions, it does not have an A before it. Just to, just to use her note. So I'll probably go back to chapter one just because it's got, it's got some blue on it. And so for this, this section, scope and requirements are all new. It used to just say general and you'll see, you know, throughout this code, it'll have some blue sections. I don't know if everybody can see that. And the blue means? That it's new or it's revised. Okay. Gotcha. Wording. Gotcha. Okay. And it may be something real simple. Like I think this A is just an additional A. So it could be that simple that they just put in a single word or letter. So again, David, to your point, it's very helpful because again, we did a lot of heavy lifting on the 2018 codes. I mean, we bisected, dissected, read. This is an easy way just to see this is what changed. So they added, so it read in the 2018 code, not more than three stories with separate means of egress. So they said, well, this would be much more clear, not more than three stories above grade plane, which is defined in height with a separate means of egress. So it just reads better, but it's an easy way for us to know then the work that we've already done. Does this really have an impact? No, it does not. That change has zero impact to what, you know, the substance was. It's just an easier read. Yeah. And there really wasn't a whole lot of changes. There really wasn't. So that's a bonus, right? We will actually go into notes. Figure out why it's not doing the same as it did when I was in here. I wonder if it's because we're on a zoom meeting. It shouldn't be any different. Okay. Well, it is. Are you clicked on my notes? You don't have to be clicked on my notes. That's where the notes go. Okay. So what I might do is just pull up a picture of what it looks like. Do it. Yeah. I might have to change. New share. Okay. Can you see the new share? Looks like a Word document? No. There you go. So this is part of section one. And when you're hovering over the sections, you're not on a zoom meeting. It'll pull up these little dots here. And then when you hover over that, it pulls up the print. It'll pull up the share, the bookmark and the notes here. So if you click on the notes, that'll give you just an area where you can put in notes and it'll attach it to the section. And then once it attaches to the section, you save it and it'll be in that left section under my notes that we saw just a little bit ago. But for some reason, it doesn't want me to show you. This is like for our own personal notes, like recommended changes or suggestions or something. Yeah. I think that'd be a great location for that. Yep. And then once we're done with a code section, like we've discussed it, we've talked about it, I'd like to put those notes that we had for those discussions in here as well. So Emily will really keep kind of a master set of notes. So her notes or whether we use, maybe we'll use my account, Emily, as you're doing the work through. You can just log in my account, use my account for the final notes, and then we'll have that record of the notes of what the commission had indicated, comments that were made. Yeah. Right now, any notes that go in there are going to be shared notes and you can share notes with other people if you take notes. So just so you know, there's a lot of functions with this premium access. So, and I'll pick on David and say, hey, if you need to ask one of those questions, you can obviously, you can share and say, hey, this section, what the heck does this mean? Name of jurisdiction. So just really that simple. Just it's new cool tools and we'll get there. Yeah. Do we want to answer any questions before we move on or look at anything else? I don't think we need to. I think everybody needs an opportunity to play with it. I think Monday will be useful. We'll be able to let people put hands on it as well. We'll give the tutorial and then let people put hands on it and do it. And I think that'll be the best tool. So no, I think we can kind of get into really the format of where we're going to be going, going forward. Probably more so on our next meeting. I will say that maybe today we'll really take no actions, Mr. Chair, if you don't mind. Because I want to make sure that everybody is into the codes before we do that, that there's a bumper. So maybe we'll make this meeting a little shorter than, you know, the full time that we have blocked out. But Emily can provide you with kind of an outline of our draft documents and how that's going to work and look and should be familiar with already. Emily, this, this Greg Howard, when we spoke at one time, you were trying to figure out which of the topics you were going to start first, which one you were most prepared for, or maybe which ones were the easiest to guide us into this smoothly. Do you particularly have some that we could put down first? So with those who are not necessarily coming to a webinar on insight training could start looking at? Sure. No, I think really any of them we could start with. I always like to start with the mechanical simple. Yeah, mechanical simple. It is. It is. So that'd be a great start. So Mike, you might, if you do stumble through it, you might glance at the mechanical and Emily will have us a tutorial sent out telling us what they are making changes on. I don't think it's that drastic, as I recall. No, and the document that you should see on your screen right now is what Emily will be sending out and that we will publish on the website. And this is really the work that was done previously and incorporating the changes to the 2021. So the language, just as she used in the example that first section where it is there were changes to the code. Well, we're not recommending any changes because they added some clarity to grade plane and added the word or the letter A. So we're not recommending any changes. And so in the 2018 codes, section 103 was the same. Emily, was it the same number? You know, it changed a little bit, right? So section 101 was the same. There was a little bit of wording differences, but it's the same. So for all users, whether they're using the free online access or the commissions using the premium access, they're going to be able to look at the code, see the changes in the code, and then compare it to this document that's on the screen to say, here's what the city of Denton is going to propose to do to the 2021 code. And so example one is section 101.1 title. And then so we're going to keep all the language the same with the exception as you saw on the other screen. Can you split your screens, Emily? Let's see. Drag that word document. It doesn't really want to do that. Drag your word document to the far left or far right. Grab the top bar. Drag it left or right. It's not like Teams. No, no, no, I'm not suggesting doing Teams. You're just doing it on your monitor because you're sharing your monitor. Right. Which ones are you trying to look at? The code? Yep. Yep. Okay. So maybe it's a control. There I got it. You'll see it in a minute. I'm pretty sure. Unless it didn't work. Yep. It did work. Okay. Now you just need to shrink the, no, shrink the, it's covering. There you go. That works. Yep. So as long as everybody has the pretty faces hidden, you should be able to see both sets of the language in the code and then how the language in the code is. So this is a really easy example of section 101 and it says name of jurisdiction. So we're doing on the left document or the word document, we're striking through name of jurisdiction and we are underlining and putting in building safety department is hereby created. On 103. 103.1. Yeah. Yeah. There's a 101, the title and then a 103. That's the creation of the agency. Yeah. They're a little different. That's okay. Well, I'm reminded how exciting this can be. It is exciting. So you'll see, you'll see that the code changed and added the function of the agency shall be the implementation, administration, enforcement of the provisions of this code. So on the document to your left, we're not underlining that because we're not adding that text. The text isn't, but you'll see that there was a change to the code. Again, not substantive. It's just clarifying who who's doing what and all we're going to do is add the words as appropriate into that into that name of name of department where it says name of department. We're just putting building safety. Does that make sense to everybody? It does. It does. We have nothing but geniuses on this board. So it won't take long. There you go. Okay. Emily, you can blow the word document back up if you want to walk through that. I just thought it would be an easy, that would be the easiest example to kind of show that. Can you use the word blow this up in a city building? I'm not, I'm not in a city building. So fortunately, you're in your office. No, I have, I have my home office that I'm, oh, there you go. I guess you're okay. Is this too big? No, it's okay. You can see it. Okay. Everybody can see it's probably easier for the viewers. So then we, we also have this red section that just explains kind of what it's, what, what this is for and if there's any change from the last year or the last adoption. We did have some changes and that was, they added a bunch of extra wording. So you will see that we already address all of our fees and the municipal fee schedule. So whenever these come through, you'll see a lot of this that's, that's taken out because of that. I think ICICI was trying to help people and kind of need more work for people with their own fee schedules. And I, and I don't know, Greg, if you want to go through these right now or, or if we're going to wait until you've had a chance to look at the, the codes. Well, I think it's probably best that everybody's able to at least view it. Go through next week's tutorial. Mike being the genius that he is, is going to do it from home. And then you can send out an itinerary, I hope, of which codes we're going to speak on. And you can send these drafts out that already give the amended suggestions if, if that's the right term. Sure. Yeah. It's, it's basically a draft of what we went through last year. And then there's a couple of one-offs like those, the fee schedule stuff that's going to be added in. We will be discussing the fee schedules in this. Not the fee schedules. It's already set by ordinance. That's what I thought. Yeah. It's a separate ordinance, but there, but, um, there's a lot of, um, references to, uh, the code officials kind of set the fees and things like that. And that's really not how the city works. Um, we adopt all fees by separate ordinance. And so we're going to just make, make this code look right. But you know, somewhere down the line, when we're not here, the code official doesn't decide to just make up their own permit fees. Well, and then that's the reason that we have Stephanie Berry on the call. So our legal department, um, does a great job of keeping us in line. Um, so we have a nationally adopted code. Some, some look, you get into smaller units of government, whether that be, you know, towns, villages, even townships, um, really those fees are set in a completely different process for us. It's truly policy direction from council. Uh, they give us the policy direction. We are currently in a model that we are using cost recovery. So the cost of the service provided is what the fee is established by. We had a third party come in and walk through all of our processes. They shadowed our inspectors. They shadowed administrative staff. We put in the hourly rate, um, really work through how long it took to process an application, how much to review a set of plans, how long to perform an inspection. And so all of those fees then went before council. They, they had a presentation on, um, how we established the, the time and the dollar value. They adopted that by separate ordinance. And so nowhere in this code will we allow that code to give us any of that latitude. Um, that's truly by, by council. And, uh, so yes, Emily's point, um, we're going to strike any of the language that, that isn't consistent with our code and we will reference the sections of the code that are applicable. I look forward to seeing that report on how long it takes to get plans through. I'll be looking forward to that. You got it. I will say, I will say that I think through this process, um, for any of the viewers, as well as the commission, um, we certainly want feedback on any items, even if they're outside of the, of the process that we're going through. So for example, the time on review, um, the cost of a permit, um, the number of inspections, any of those types of things, we want that feedback. So whether it's the commissioner, whether it's any, anyone from the public, um, certainly provide that feedback. It doesn't mean that we'll necessarily make those changes in this code, but for me as the director, I certainly need that information to make sure when I talk to the city manager's office and when I speak to council that they understand, um, really what our community is telling us. Sorry, Emily. It's fine. No, it's good. You have any more direction towards this regarding, uh, Monday's information and your updated schedule? Meaning, are you trying to end the meeting Mr. Chair? I was told by somebody that I needed to know how to do that. Miss Dillard, I got an email telling me I'm the one that has to make this happen. I don't need any more direction. Good. Mike, am I doing okay on that or am I in trouble? And Tori's got to pick up her kids. No, we're, we're good. We, we don't, we don't need to make any decisions today. We really wanted to just try to get that level of comfort with, with, uh, you as the commission and then viewers on the call. Um, and do we have that, we have that website up yet, Emily, or not yet? We do not. Okay. So, um, by our next meeting, we'll have that. Um, so Mr. Chair, you can, you can do what you need to do with this meeting. We will, uh, we, we will send some, some invites out and we will make contact with the other commission members that were not able to be present today. Um, but I expect to see three of you on Monday for some reason you can't make it. That's absolutely fine. And do you know where we are? Does everybody know where our new office will be sending that? Okay. We're going to send that to the three, Selena, if you would please. Um, and I will say the parking lot is under construction. It's an active construction site. Your entry will be off of Parkway and you'll be parking immediately in front of the building. So it's some parallel parking in front of the building. You can't drive all over the parking lot. We still have fresh concrete and we have landscapers in there working. So it's kind of cordoned off. So there's a small, there's a small parking area for the public off of Parkway. So the address is 401 North Elm, but it'll look like nobody works here. That's what it looks like. So don't be, don't be stressed out when the parking lot is. Yeah. You can, you can park across McKinney if you want to play Frogger. That's where staff parks across the street. So you don't want to park there. I did record the comment that nobody's working there. It appears, but if you come in the building, there are actual people here. And I appreciate Scott supplying lunch today. I got my sandwich delivered here. I really appreciate. So for the other board members who didn't get theirs, I apologize. Scott just must've dropped the ball, but I really appreciate it. Thank you for that. I do appreciate that. Is there any other questions, concerns or comments by anybody on the meeting? So let it be stated that the meeting is adjourned because we don't have to take a motion for it. I'm told. Is that right? Stephanie? That is correct. See we have legal counseling. Have a wonderful week, everybody. And thanks for your efforts to the staff. Y'all too.